Evil's Bane
by tikitikirevenge
Summary: Long in Hyrule's past, the Master Sword was forged by human hands. This is that story and others: how people from all walks of life changed history.
1. Prologue: He who would be a God

_**Evil's Bane**_

* * *

A/N: Better get this out of the way before I begin…

1) I don't claim to own the Zelda series or any of its trademarks. That said, some characters and ideas in this story are original.

2) This story is set well before any official game. Don't expect the geography to resemble anything familiar. At this point in Hyrule's history, magic was much more commonplace than it is in any of the games.

* * *

**Prologue – He Who Would Be a God**

* * *

Burning and unforgiving – sunrise came to the Gerudo Desert far too soon, heralding the start of what would be a bitter day. But what a sunrise, he marvelled. That blinding array of colours, shining gloriously across the desert… and a single, lone, rainless cloud cast a shadow above the Hylian army. It was an omen… this, he knew, was a battle they'd win.

Arado Dragmire had been commanding battle after battle since he'd come of age and assumed command of the Gerudos. He had lost just as many of these battles as he had won, yet with every year their territory expanded and began to push towards the edge of the desert, towards the mountain range which separated them from Hyrule. For centuries now, the Gerudos and the Hylians fought to shape this border. One day, Arado hoped to end the war. The Gerudos would slash their way into the plains of Hyrule, from which they would never be pushed back. One day, he would carve a name for himself in the history of the Gerudos.

One day, Arado wanted to see Hyrule for himself.

Standing atop the battlements of a makeshift fort deep in the desert, he gazed into the distance, eyeing the distant Hylian army, the morning sun burning into his eyes. The fort had been erected some few days before, as word of the approaching Hylian army had reached the Gerudos. It was something of a rush effort, but it would withstand an assault for a while… not that he expected the Hylians to come even close.

Something caught his eye and he frowned.

The Hylians had set up many cloth tents to weather the cold desert night. Among them, though, one was dyed red. Blood red, he thought, fire red, sunset red… royal red. Such lavishness on a battlefield… no mere commander slept in that tent; it had to be royalty.

"Awake, milord?"

"Obviously," Arado snapped, and he turned around to see who it was.

It was Lamoora, dressed in an unassuming purple robe like any other Gerudo. She was his second-in-command. She had earned this position by virtue of her cunning and formidable swordsmanship. Her physical attraction hadn't hurt, either.

She bowed her head slightly in respect. "What do you think of the coming battle?"

"We'll win it," said Arado flatly. "They have more men, but they aren't used to fighting in the sand. What concerns me is that red tent in their camp."

He motioned into the distance, not expecting her to see it. It was little more than a speck to him from where they stood, and his eyesight was trained to be better than most Gerudos'.

"A red tent?" said Lamoora. "What about it?"

"I haven't seen even their best commanders riding around with such decadence," Arado said. "Red is the colour of extravagance, of flaunted wealth." Lamoora looked confused, so he went on with a sigh: "We have royalty to contend with today. The Hylian king will be leading their charge today… no, he's far too old for battle. That will be his son." The king of Hyrule had an heir close to Arado's age; this he had learnt from a traveller who they had captured, tortured, and set free.

"I see…" She sounded genuinely interested. "If we can capture their prince…"

"Exactly," Arado said, smiling unpleasantly. "Having the royal brat in our possession would be extremely useful. Imagine the information we might be able to extract from someone who has been in the royal court for so long. And then, of course, with a sword at his throat we could march straight into Hyrule unchallenged."

"Are you sure the king would value his son's life over his kingdom?" Lamoora asked.

Arado considered. Lamoora almost always agreed with his every decision, so he was always curious whenever she raised objections. Her occasional suggestions usually had merit, too. No doubt about it, Arado was happy to have her as his right-hand woman.

"Perhaps not," he conceded after a moment. "But even then, if he proves useless as a prisoner, then we could treat him to an amusing death…"

"Hmm." Lamoora seemed suitably pleased. "That would be fun."

"Yes," he said. "All the more reason to win this battle, eh?"

"Yes, lord Arado."

"Well, then," said Arado. "Rally the women. Tell them to be ready in ten minutes' time. We'll begin then."

"The plan is what you said last night, yes?" she asked.

Arado nodded. With the ambush group he had sent under the cover of darkness, it would be a simple matter to overwhelm the Hylian forces from both sides, so long as their tactics proved as unimaginative as always.

"Leave me now," he added as an afterthought.

Bowing her head and muttering his name respectfully, Lamoora retreated into the fort proper.

Arado continued to stare out into the morning, his lips curling into a smile as he imagined the blood that would be spilt this morning. And so he stood.

* * *

Prince Verdin Hyrule, heir to the royal throne, shifted uncomfortably in the morning heat as he stood outside his tent, gazing out into the desert plains. Standing before him were the commanders of the four battalions he had brought to this accursed land.

He would much rather have been back in Hyrule where the weather agreed with him, but it _was_ his father who'd asked (or rather, commanded) him to lead this charge. Verdin had led armies through other successful battles, and His Majesty felt that it would be proper for a royal to lead this battle. After all, this battle would redefine the boundaries of Gerudo territory… and more importantly, it was a battle that Verdin knew they would win.

"We will take their fort," he said, pointing out into the distance (no useful maps had been drawn of this wasteland). "There can't be more than a few hundred Gerudo women in there."

He paused for a moment, waiting for a response. An emotionless murmur sounded from the commanders.

"I'm glad we agree," Verdin said. He shifted his weight onto his left foot, gazing thoughtfully into the distance at the Gerudo fort.

"Those Gerudo women won't be easy to fight, though," he continued after a moment's pause. "You've all led charges against these _creatures_ before; they won't die easily, and they definitely won't surrender. Their bladework is more practised than most of the proud men who will fight alongside us today… they may even have mages or something like that among their number. It will be dangerous for us all, and… yes, dangerous."

They didn't say anything. _Why won't they say anything?_, he wondered. Perhaps they were standing there, thinking to themselves, _Prince Verdin, the royal brat; too young to know what he's talking about; if only the King was here to lead us to victory, not his sorry excuse for a son_. That was it, he decided – these four commanding officers didn't think he was capable of leading the charge, not after they had served under his father… the King was a brilliant swordsman and tactician.

Clenching his fists without realising, Verdin began to pace as he talked.

"So, I say this to you now, and I will say it again to my – no, _our_ soldiers before the battle: as long as we don't underestimate these Gerudos, we'll win the battle easily. We outnumber them – what, eight to one? At least that much. That's all the advantage we need." He stopped, considering what else he could possibly say. With a sigh, he concluded, "So that's how the battle will proceed today. Any questions?"

The commanding officers glanced between themselves uncomfortably. Then one of them spoke, a large brown-haired man whose name Verdin couldn't remember.

"My Prince," he said, "perhaps I have misunderstood. Are you suggesting that we charge them head-on, sir?"

Verdin blinked. Hadn't he been clear? "Yes," he said, with a faint trace of annoyance. "As I just _said_, as long as the men keep their wits about them, we can win this with little difficulty. We'll meet them face-to-face, and we will win."

Another officer spoke now. (Tall, balding; what was his name? Lonnes? Lornes? Verdin inwardly sighed and gave up.) "Prince Verdin, shouldn't we separate; flank them from either side, at the very least?" this man said.

_Actually, that's a good idea_, thought Verdin. Aloud, he said, "Of course; that's standard tactics, isn't it? I shouldn't need to tell you all that." He glared at the commander who had asked the question.

The first commander spoke again. "With all due respect, sir, are you sure that we should be…"

"_Yes_! Yes, I am sure!" snapped Prince Verdin, swivelling on the spot to face him. His voice rose slightly. "Whatever lies you're whispering behind my back, I know _exactly_ what I am doing! I have led soldiers into victorious battles before, and I understand the art of war as well as any of you people do. I'm the prince, the royal heir; I'm my father's _son_; do you think that he would have sent me here if he didn't know that I am _perfectly capable_ of leading this army?"

"But, sir…"

"That's enough!" Verdin yelled. "I am in charge here and you are _all_, every one of you…" – he swept his hand around, pointing at them all – "going to do exactly what I need you to, and it will work; we'll win the battle, crush those pathetic Gerudo whores, go back to Hyrule proper, and celebrate our victory. Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir," replied the commanders in unison. Verdin allowed himself a sigh of relief. These men, in all their military experience, were willing to listen to him after all.

"Good," he said. "Thank you."

_Blasted desert heat_, he thought to himself. He dismissed the commanders and returned into his tent to drink something.

* * *

Brushing passers-by out of the way with small, subtle hand movements, Fedora and her young charge led the way through the streets and back-alleys of Castle Town. The four young men and women she had brought with her followed them discreetly from behind and from in front. They didn't want to draw attention yet.

Fedora was a tall black-haired woman in her late fifties; instead of her normal ceremonial red-and-blue robes, she currently wore several layers of cheap, tattered rags. If anybody was watching the streets, which was undoubtedly the case, they would have no prior warning that Peacekeepers were on their way. Walking briskly through the alleyways alongside Fedora was a docile girl in her late teens who she considered her protégé. She had spent the last few years schooling the girl in magic – this hunt was something of a test for the young one, who one day might be able to assume Fedora's position. She was like a daughter to her; Fedora childless, the girl motherless…

After countless years of service, Fedora had been head of the Peacekeeping Guild for a long time now, answering directly to the King himself. Essentially, while the military and the diplomats dealt with enemies from afar, the guild was responsible for protecting Hyrule from interior threats. Sometimes this meant mundane tasks like arresting common thieves on the streets and bandits in the countryside. Sometimes the guild became entangled in violent politicking and assassination attempts. Right now, they were dealing with the most threatening of criminals – Triforce seekers.

"Not bad," said Fedora to her young charge, "so far."

"Thanks…" said the girl carefully. She looked slightly uncomfortable in the patched clothing she wore, but she was clearly enjoying the sense of freedom. The illusory magic she was currently using made her appear slightly shorter than normal, and her hair seemed to be a dirty blonde.

The girl closed her eyes and focused briefly. Then, she nodded to the left. "Let's go this way," she said.

"Why not," said Fedora, and they turned left. Fedora had been emphatic beforehand – they weren't to say anything remotely magic-related. The people they were searching for were probably watching the streets with eyes and with spells.

The Triforce was a magical object, a divine artefact that the three great Goddesses had left behind after creating the world. Many things were said about it – that it granted wishes, power, even happiness – and Fedora was sceptical of this. If the Triforce had such amazing power, why hadn't the kings and queens of Hyrule past used it for their own ends? On the other hand, she admitted to herself, there was clearly some truth to the stories, otherwise there would be no need to keep it hidden away so securely. The Triforce had been sealed some time ago in another realm of existence, the 'Sacred Realm', where it was protected from thieving hands… at least, in theory.

In her work in the Peacekeeper's Guild, Fedora every-so-often had to deal with people trying to breach the ethereal barrier to the Sacred Realm. It was only really possible to do this within a certain distance of Hyrule Castle, where the Realm had been created. This made it easier to prevent breaches, however it was still a difficult task to apprehend Triforce-seekers. People with the capability to magically rip open a path into the Sacred Realm tended to be difficult to pin down.

A few hours ago, one of Fedora's subordinates in the Peacekeeping Guild had sensed an explosion of magical activity in the north-western corner of town. There was currently a significant dent (for lack of a better word; magic was often difficult to describe in simple terms) in the magical barrier. It would take a few weeks for these people to breach the Sacred Realm, so Fedora had waited patiently until her protégé was awake before beginning the search.

Right now the girl was growing visibly apprehensive – they were close to their targets, and they could both sense it. Clutching Fedora's hand tightly, the girl nodded slightly in the direction of an unassuming decrepit building not far from where they were. Fedora smiled and nodded. The girl definitely had a natural talent for this; today's demonstration showed that in just a few years, she already had a grasp of auramancy that many people could never hope to achieve.

So yes, they were close, but that meant that they had to act fast before the Triforce-seekers hiding in the building realised they were there. Fedora glanced over her shoulder. The other four Peacekeepers she had brought along were tagging along some fifteen seconds behind them. In a couple of seconds, Fedora and the girl would themselves have reached the building. She deliberated between slowing down and letting the others catch up, or entering the building now, with the element of surprise on their side.

"We're not going to wait," she muttered to the girl, dropping all pretences of the mother-and-daughter act that their clothing suggested. "I want you to open the door."

"Okay," said the girl, running her free hand through her long hair anxiously. She was understandably worried – if Fedora's past experiences were any indication, the people inside this building wouldn't hesitate to kill the pair of them.

"Scared?" said Fedora as they reached the door.

The girl smiled weakly, turned, and with a raised hand and a muttered incantation she 'opened' the door.

With a deafening crack, the door flew off its hinges and landed on the ground, skidding for a short distance before coming to rest. Fedora and the girl followed it in quickly.

The building was a large, empty storehouse, bare except for its stone walls and a ladder in the corner which probably led to a rooftop. There were three men inside – two youngish, fair-haired men who might have been brothers, and an older-looking bony-armed one. They had clearly been interrupted in the middle of a magic procedure. Even in the weak lighting, Fedora could see oil and blood mixed on the floor in various patterns, some of them old blood ritual markers she'd seen a thousand times before, some of them disturbingly pious in their Triforce-shaped designs. It was really the same setup as always; rather than trying to reach into the Sacred Realm with a single, specialised spell, these men were trying several different ones at once.

It was fortunate that despite any skill in magic they might have had, Triforce-seekers never seemed to have the wisdom they would need to succeed in their ventures.

"In the name of the King," said Fedora officiously, "you are–"

The oldest-looking man reacted quickly; he sprang up, shouted an incantation in a foreign tongue, and a wall of flame burst into being, separating her from all three of the Triforce-seekers. He turned and began to run for the ladder in the back corner.

Fedora reflexively addressed the fire, in the space of seconds cycling through half a dozen different spells for extinguishing flames. The flames flickered but continued to burn in a perfect line. "Put them out," she said to the girl briskly, and returned her attention to the men on the other side of the flames.

The remaining two men were standing now, with the wild faces Fedora had come to associate with cornered rats. The bony-armed one who had started the fire was halfway up the ladder.

"Din's mercy," she whispered, and, with a wordless incantation, a ball of light flew from her fingertips into the back of the bony-armed man. With a horrific yell, he fell backwards from the ladder, hit the ground hard, and lay still.

Without warning, a small whirlwind formed in the middle of the room, disrupting the wall of flames and sending embers everywhere. Fedora glanced to her side and saw the girl staring intently at it, her hands unconsciously pulling at the air in front of her as it swirled around.

Half a second later, the fire blew out completely, as the four others Fedora had brought along streamed through the door, breathing heavily but standing composed.

"You took your time," said Fedora without malice, watching the two hostiles still standing.

"Only ten seconds," said one of her most-trusted officers, a brown-bearded solidly-built man named Yorrick. "You could have waited for us."

The Peacekeepers moved over the remains of the fire, closing in on the criminals.

"I'm surrounded by incompetence," replied Fedora lightly.

The two criminals still conscious deliberated fighting to the finish, but thought better of it. It was just two of them against six members of the Peacekeeping Guild, and if the tall woman leading them was any indication, they were outnumbered _and_ outclassed.

"Surrender," one of them said, coughing on smoke. "We surrender."

"Good choice," said Fedora. She reassumed her dry, legalese tone. "As I was saying, you are all under arrest for attempting to enter the Sacred Realm."

The downcast Triforce-seekers obliged meekly as they were bound and prepared for transport to the dungeons. Yorrick kicked at the other man who had fallen from the ladder and pronounced him alive. Fedora watched the process disinterestedly for a few minutes and then turned back to the long-haired girl, who seemed intrigued by the aftermath.

"What did you think?" she said to the girl.

"Well, firstly, they weren't very skilled," the girl replied instantly. "The magic which they were using–"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," said Fedora. "I was hoping for your emotional response…?"

"Oh," said the girl, and she seemed to consider the question. "It was… interesting… yes, it was interesting to see the way they were misusing magic."

Fedora motioned at the door. "Shall we go?"

"Yes, please," said the girl. "These clothes are itchy." She tugged at the collar of her top.

"All right," said Fedora. They walked outside into a deserted street.

"I expected them to be more violent," said the girl after a pause. "More fireballs and flying rocks…"

"Some people can be quite aggressive," said Fedora. "It depends on the person… by the way, I was very impressed by your work today."

"Really?" said the girl eagerly, and Fedora obligingly began to dole out praise.

"Well," she said, "you led us straight to those men. I've said this to you before, but you really do have a natural talent for magic."

The girl smiled, her gait loosening and her arms beginning to swing. "What about the way I put out the fire?"

"That was inventive of you," said Fedora. "You know, once your brother marries off, you should really consider working as a Peacekeeper. Or as royal mage. Something magic-related would suit you."

The girl grinned. "Thanks, Miss Fedora. It sounds like more fun than being sent off as a diplomat to some forsaken land."

They emerged into a wider lane, and once again they were surrounded by people.

"Would my father let me, though?" the girl said.

"His Majesty is a wise man, thank the Goddesses," said Fedora. "I'm sure he'd have your best interests at heart, Zelda."

"I guess," said the girl. "Yes, I suppose that is true…" She smiled, shook her head, and pointed vaguely down the road. "We're not in a rush to get back to the castle, are we? I want to explore this part of town for a while."

"That's not a good idea," said Fedora, which meant 'yes', and they lost themselves in the crowd.

* * *

There was no other choice: the ritual had to be performed here, in this open field. It was a horrible place for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was that it was a stone's throw from a nearby dirt road. It was within an hour's walk of the nearest town, and even closer to the nearest farm. If some idiot villager happened to walk in on the ritual, things would become… complicated.

This is what the field looked like:

Grass stretched out into the horizon. There were a few trees peppering the view here and there, but for the most part, it was unfenced fields where callous men on horses could ride for hours and where young lovers could roll in the grass unseen.

The sky was cloudless; it was midday on a windless, fair day. The calm weather was suited to the ritual, which would be a delicate one – a small mistake might have horrific results.

Not too far from the dirt path was a round patch of earth where no grass grew. It stood out, a scar on an otherwise pleasant landscape. There was a story regarding that lifeless circle on the ground. It was a story of greed, reckless ambition, and ultimately death.

A figure cloaked in red robes knelt before that patch of dead grass.

The kneeling wasn't necessary for the ritual, nor was it a gesture of respect: it was just more comfortable than standing up. The red robes were mainly for anonymity, on the off-chance that the ritual was interrupted. But there was something of an allure to red. Red was the colour of fire, blood, and sunset. It was the primary colour of Din, Goddess of Power. It was the colour of love and passion… while it made no difference whatsoever to the ritual, the colour of the robes seemed appropriate.

With one last glance behind to see if anyone was coming, the red-robed one began the ritual.

Half an hour of quiet chanting, salt-sowing and intricate hand gestures later, and it was all but done. The ground was covered with table salt, strewn in a perfect circle. In the middle of this circle, outlined in drops of blood, was the ancient symbol for death and shadow – a triangle and three smaller circles, one on each side. The circles suggested the breaking of the triangle, and thus the end of life.

The ritual was just moments from completion, and beneath the hood of the robes, someone of flesh and blood was staring contemplatively at the shadow symbol on the ground, wondering if the spell had been performed correctly. If not, the thing which was about to be raised from the ground would be _wrong_, with mutilated limbs and cloudy eyes and a lunatic mind. It would wander the fields of Hyrule, the deformed shadow of a man, wreaking havoc with its uncontrolled magical energy until someone put it out of its misery. It was an unpleasant image… hopefully that wouldn't happen.

Too late for second-guesses now. The red-robed one stood slowly, brushing dust off the cloth. The arms of the robes seemed to rise of their own accord, and two hands protruded out, palms raised to the heavens. The person beneath the robes stretched all ten fingers out gently, and with a deep breath, spoke a single word:

"Rise."

There was no deep rumbling from the earth, no flashes of thunder and lightning, and no unearthly roar. With an eerie silence, a small copper bell protruded from the earth, directly in the centre of the salt markings.

The moment this happened, the salt markings began to glow faintly, a slight red shimmer emanating from them. The glow gradually grew in strength for a few seconds, until it was brighter than candle-light, and tiny momentary crackles of red electrical energy had begun to jump from salt mound to salt mound.

A moment later, and the bell in the middle appeared to levitate – but no, it was attached to something larger, also rising from below the ground. Several coloured shades of fabric, red, yellow, green and blue, identified it as a jesters' cap. The cap rose slowly from the ground, dirt spilling from it and forming a shallow ring around it.

The red-robed one stopped and stared at the jesters' cap for a long while. The glowing electric bolts flew from the salt into the cap and back into the salt again, infusing it with their energy.

With a sudden jerking motion, the red-robed one pulled at the air violently. There _was_ a loud noise this time, as if lightning had suddenly struck. The shadow symbol, traced in salt and blood, glowed in a violent, glaring crimson colour one last time… and then the jesters' cap flew out of the ground, followed by what had to be a jester. He landed right in front of the hole, and looked at himself.

The red energy had transferred itself to him, and every few seconds, a miniature bolt of lightning would fly between his fingers, or run down the length of his body. His skin, was somewhere between flesh-colour and grey, while his hair had gone white – an adverse-effect of the magic used to raise him. His clothes were equally colourful clothing befitting a jester in some royal court, except that they were burnt and frayed and frozen all over. He was average height, and thinly-built, and he was smiling with a mixture of delight and confusion. The jester's name was Salencia, and almost two hundred years ago, he had died on this very spot.

He stood very still, staring intently at his hands, and then down at his ruined clothing. He reached up and ran his hands through the cap, listening to the bells rattle dully.

"I'm alive," he said, and despite the bewilderment on his face there was already a hint of smugness, arrogance even, creeping into his voice.

"Not really," said the red-robed one, arms dropping now that the ritual was over and the spell had been cast. "But feel free to pretend you are, if it makes you feel better."

He laughed, sounding slightly manic. "I died, didn't I? They were everywhere, throwing things and shooting arrows and shouting at me, and they killed me. I remember that. I remember dying." He glanced around, staring at the sky, the grass, the distant trees, savouring every detail of them. His eyes found the salt markings on the ground and he crowed in delight. "Ah, the shadow pattern! Symbol of death, yes? I knew of it, of course, but I never really was interested in learning death magic… I didn't know anybody _worth_ bringing back from the grave." He stopped, seeming to notice the person in red robes for the first time. "Right! I suppose you want me thank you… what should I call you, by the way?"

The red-robed one shifted on the spot. "Master. Or perhaps 'Wise One'. We can settle on a name later."

The jester's eyes narrowed. "You don't seem very respectful of me…"

"Of course not," said the red-robed one. "Since you died, you've become the folktale image of pure evil. There isn't very much to respect."

"Then I have no use for you," said Salencia, and he raised his hand and twisted it sharply in midair.

A small, cloudy ball of pure black flew from his hand, straight at the person in robes. It got almost a quarter of the way there before glowing red and turning into that same brand of electrical energy which had lifted him from the ground.

The jester stared at the ball of red light for a moment, stunned. Then it flew straight back into him, and he flew backwards with a pained yell, landing hard on the ground.

"You shouldn't do that," said the red-robed one. "Trying to hurt me. The spell that raised you will cause you a lot of pain if you go against me."

Salencia climbed to his feet slowly, glaring all the while.

"Besides, if you killed me," continued the other, "the spell would die with me and you would return to that grave… very painfully, I might add."

"I see," said Salencia, sounding sullen. "So this is where it's come to… after all the trouble I went to, nothing has come of it… do you know my story?"

"Of course I do. That's why I raised…"

The jester waved a hand dismissively and continued as if he hadn't heard. "Me, a jester in the royal court of Hyrule. I was there to entertain the royal family, and the nobles, and their pets even if that was what they wanted… I enjoyed it – a little bit of mocking humour here, a little self-humiliation, the occasional magic spell here and there – a lot of fun. You know, the queen once said to me…"

"I don't care," said the red-robed one brusquely. "The reason I brought you back from the dead…"

Salencia pressed on louder. "Fine. To the point, then. Living in the servants' part of the castle, there was so much to see. Palace intrigues to spy on and magical tomes from their great library to read, when nobody was looking… I learnt quickly that it's far easier than it sounds to gain people's confidence, to promise power and respect to them and gain exactly that in return."

"I've heard this story before…" There was a warning tone to that voice now.

"People in very high places were on my side. Some of the royal guards hungered for more than what they had. Out on the streets people were more than happy to follow me in the promise of something more to their lives. I even managed to enchant the King's sons into my cause – not the King or Queen, though; they seemed immune to my spells. Can you imagine? I was so close to taking the throne, half the castle was on my side, and they just wouldn't abdicate. They got a little angry. They tried to arrest me. Then, they–"

A sudden breeze swept up the salt on the ground, clumps of salt seeming to lift into the air and float of their own accord. They started circling in a mad whirlwind of coarse pellets, battering the jester like a sandstorm. He winced, then choked on the fierce cloud of salt and began flailing wildly. If he was still alive, it would have killed him.

The red-robed one watched the saltstorm for a few seconds, and then let it drop. Salencia stood where he was, breathing heavily as the tiny crystals dropped back to the ground unceremoniously.

"Are you done yet?"

Salencia nodded, raised a warning hand, and added, "So this is my fate, then? I, who would have been a god in flesh and blood. I, who almost ruled Hyrule." He shook his head violently, the cap ringing with the noise, and granules of salt fell from where they had lodged in the bells. "Right. Why am I here? Do you want to learn from me, to succeed where I failed?"

"Not exactly," said the red-robed one.

The jester smiled knowingly. "Ah, you're one of those fools who think they can pluck the Triforce from its hiding spot… people still do that, right?"

"Yes, they do, and no, I'm not. Things have changed since you died. Nobody with any sense would try to break the walls of the Sacred Realm, not in this day and age."

"How long has it been?" said Salencia suddenly.

"You died one hundred and ninety-seven years ago."

He nodded, looking almost sad. "That long…"

"Yes," said the red-robed one, "that long."

"What do you want from me, then?" said Salencia.

He was told. It only took about ten minutes, and by the end of it he was smiling again.

"…I might enjoy this," he said.

"If you say so," said the red-robed one. "I must leave now. Have fun, and cause as much trouble as you please, but remember what I said. There are rules you will follow."

The red-robed one turned around with a _swish_ and walked away from the circle.

"Wait," said the jester suddenly. "Let me see who you are."

The other swivelled around on the spot and seemed to stare. "Can't you tell from my voice?"

"You're mocking me," said Salencia with a mock sulk. "That voice barely sounds natural at all. You're using a spell to disguise it; that much is obvious. And I can't sense anything through your robes."

No response.

"Well, who are you?" he continued. "Male or female? Peasant or pauper? Hylian or foreigner? Human or… something? I'll find out eventually."

A silence, as the other person considered his words.

Salencia kept the same smile plastered on his face, inwardly waiting to see if he was about to be hurt again.

"Fine," said the other, lowering the hood.

Salencia stared for a while, a mixture of curiosity and respect on his face.

"That's interesting," he said after a while.

The other laughed and turned around. "Don't follow me."

Salencia stared at the back of the red robes as his new master walked onto the dirt path, and into the distance.

He would do what he was asked, of course. In an unfamiliar position like this, it was best to test his limits gradually. And the task he had before him was certainly the sort of thing he enjoyed.

But the magic keeping him in check had to be breakable. Perhaps with enough power gleaned on his own, or perhaps with some clever counterspell, he would be able to get free and be his own master again… it would be a precaution for when his new master grew tired of him. What a trick; what an unpleasant surprise it would be.

Salencia laughed, already anticipating his freedom.

* * *

**A/N:** Right… so, I've had this idea running around in my head for a while now, and wanted to put it down in writing. In case it isn't clear, my intention is to focus on a medium-sized selection of characters. And for better or worse, one of them is going to be a stereotypical unwilling dungeon-crawling green-clad boy.

This is where I ask for reviews (surprise!). I think I'm justified, at least right now; I'm about to commit to a long-ish story and I want to know if there's something horribly wrong. Is my writing style snobbish? Are the characters all hateable? Did I fail to explain something legibly? Constructive criticism and/or praise would be great (however, I will gladly read through unconstructive reviews, and cry/smile accordingly).

Right, this seems like an awkward place to break off…


	2. Cock's Crow

**_Evil's Bane_**

* * *

**Cock's Crow**

* * *

Malina slowly opened the door, wincing as it rusty hinges creaked, and, step by step, stole into the bedroom. The wooden floorboards closest to the door had grown splinters in the past few months, turning into painful traps for bare feet. She carefully weaved around them, placing each grimy mud-covered foot delicately and deliberately, coming ever-closer to the bed with each step.

She was eleven years old (as she was ever proud to proclaim), with blue eyes and a long mess of red hair. Malina's father and older sister always said that she resembled her mother. _She_ couldn't remember what her mother looked like, but her father wouldn't lie to her about something like that, would he?

Steady, now… in the dim light of the windowless room, there was the danger that she might trip, ruining all her effort _and_ causing her embarrassment. But no, it was safe – she was within reaching distance of the bed, and she didn't dare take a step closer lest he woke up. It was a cheap bed: pinewood and chicken feathers and cotton, not necessarily in that order, nailed together firmly and adequately.

Now, to get into position: Malina edged towardss the head of the bed, shaking her head derisively at the boy's snoring. Malina didn't snore. When she was close enough to touch him, she leant over, bracing one hand against the wall to keep her balance.

Grinning maliciously, and silently drawing a lungful of air, she brought her mouth right up to his ear and paused. She ran through the words in her mind, fought her smile back, and…

"Wake _up_!" squealed Malina, in the loudest, shrillest voice she could muster.

With a startled yelp, the boy did exactly that. He opened his eyes, registering the red hair and instinctively swiped at her. She pushed off against the wall, bringing her head out of harm's way and hopped back as his outstretched hand missed her easily.

"_What_?" he said snappishly,

Malina struggled to hold back a smile. "Link! My dad wants you over in the barn right now. He's furious. Furious! He says if you don't…" – and she gave up and dissolved in a fit of giggles at the disbelieving look on his face.

With a groan, he whipped his pillow out from beneath his head and flung it across the room at her, hitting her hard in the chest. It hurt a bit, but she kept on laughing and tossed it back onto the bed.

"Is it even daybreak yet?" Link said, sitting up. When she snickered mischievously, he shook his head in annoyance. "Didn't think so. Malin… this is the third time this month–"

"It's Malin_a_," she replied with a deceptively innocent smile, backtracking towards the door, "and it _is_ a milk run day, so I thought you might want to get up extra early."

"Goddesses help me," muttered Link, and with a lightning-fast movement grabbed the pillow again. Malina pulled the door shut and smiled with satisfaction as the pillow thudded loudly against solid wood.

But that was what Link was like. He looked like a recruitment poster for the Hylian army, blond hair and blue eyes. He was thirteen or fourteen or maybe even fifteen, caught somewhere directly between child and adult, and he could go from boringly serious and righteous to stupidly playful in the space of seconds. Her father, Talon, said it was a 'growing up' thing. Her older sister, Nemia, said it didn't matter why since it wasn't a bad thing and would Malina mind shutting up once in a while? Malina preferred her father's answer.

Occasionally she felt sorry for Link; she knew what it was like to not have a mother, and she didn't mind much at all, but not having a father – that would be _weird_.

Malina slipped into the kitchen. Her father didn't look up from his breakfast. She reached the wood stove and sighed – the eggs had burnt themselves in her absence. Oops. Plenty more where they'd come from. She tossed them onto an empty plate, sunny-side down, where the yolks split and ran everywhere. She put the pan back onto the iron counter, where it added a new burn mark to the collection.

She climbed a stool and grabbed two more eggs from a high shelf, hopped down, and was about to crack them when Talon spoke.

"M'lina?" Her father sounded like he could have used another hour's sleep.

"Yes, dad?" said Malina, putting one egg down, and swivelling around to face him.

"Link awake?" He definitely sounded tired, which was funny because they'd all gone to bed early last night.

"Yep," she replied, and on impulse stretched out a fingertip, feeling for the hot edge of the frying pan. "I just checked on him; he was already up…" She touched the side of the pan and pulled away before it could burn.

It Talon wasn't as tired as he was, he would probably have realised that Link always woke up right on the cock's crow at dawn, and somebody must have woken him up, and that someone must have been her, and she would have gotten a very mild scolding. Instead, he said, "Oh, good. Fix something up for him, will you?"

"'Course," said Malina. When she'd turned five her father had taught her the bare basics of cooking, and since then she'd been the house cook, every day, except for the one or two times she'd had an accident with scalding water or a chopping knife.

"Are you going on a milk run today?" she added, not wanting to turn around and face the pan. She held the egg out behind her back and slowly started tapping it against the pan edge.

"I told you that before," said Talon, looking back down at his food again. "While we're out, you'll take care of things here. Milk, eggs, feeding… you know…"

"'Course I will," said Malina with the arrogance that children her age could get away with. "I'm a _good girl_." She tapped it and felt a shudder. With both hands behind her back now, she held the egg above the pan (at least, she hoped that was where it was), and cracked it open.

"Make your sister help, too," her father added. "If the farm ends up being her dowry, she'd better know the least thing about it." That was unlikely. With her plain looks and her unintentionally self-absorbed personality, Nemia was going to be a pain to marry off.

"Uh-huh… sure thing, dad," said Malina. As she said this, she groped around for the handle of the pan and found it; from there it was a simple process to swing it around and bring it over the stove. She set it down carefully on the iron stand, and let go gently so that it didn't fall off.

"What _are_ you doing there?" said her father, who had finally noticed her awkward manoeuvrings.

"Nothing," she said, turning around to see how she'd done. To her delight, it was a near-perfect egg, the yolk right in the centre of the pan, and the white almost a perfect circle around it.

Malina didn't really believe in good omens, not really, but having pulled that off first try made her feel very confident. It was going to be a good day.

* * *

If you asked a servant in the royal castle, or any high-ranking military officer, or a foreign diplomat, they would all tell you that the King was a brilliant leader, easily one of the best Hyrule had ever had, good-natured to his subjects, a mastermind tactician, and a shrewd politician when need be.

If you asked that same person, except really late at night, perhaps while drunk, in a one-to-one talk, and swearing yourself to the utmost secrecy, they would all tell you that the King was a brilliant leader until that fever had taken his wife, ten years ago. Since then, he'd always been ever-so-slightly distanced from those around him, delegating all military decisions to his commanders and later to his son, worrying about immediate enemies more than long-term allies.

The last ten years had mainly been concerned with preparing his son Verdin to take his place, and with preparing his daughter Zelda for a government position or a diplomatically-stabilising marriage. The wounded messenger who barged into the castle late last night had destroyed his plans, and he was still struggling to come to terms with this development.

More than a week ago now, the King had dispatched his son along with some of his best commanders to the western desert to push the Gerudos back. By all rights it was their battle to win, and indeed the messenger reported that they'd encountered a small group of Gerudo women scavenging for food and killed them with minimal difficulty. But somehow when genuine battle begun, the desert rats had somehow gained the upper hand, and then… and then the messenger had somehow made it back, screaming of blood-stained sand, claiming that he was the only survivor and it was only by Farore's mercy that he'd made it back to Hyrule alive.

"Verdin…" he whispered, pacing back and forth in his private quarters, as if speaking his son's name would suddenly bring him back.

"Father," said Zelda very quietly, who was sitting in his chair, back stiff and head bowed slightly so as not to get in his way. She was here because he'd planned to continue last week's lesson on the politics foreign trade. He'd given up before they'd even begun; there was no way he could compartmentalise the loss of his son, not so soon. "We don't know he's dead…"

"Yes?" he said, waiting for his daughter to realise her faux pas.

"Well, they might have taken him… prisoner…" she said, trailing off.

"That," said the King gravely, "is as good as dead."

"I'm sorry, father." In a murmur, she added, "I suppose this doesn't bode well for Hyrule's future."

In a lighter mood, he might have congratulated her for a graceful, diplomatic segue. Instead, he let her words wash over him, deepening his brooding. "Yes," he said. "Verdin is my only heir."

"Your only male heir," said Zelda. He stared her in the eye and she stared right back at him. The girl certainly had cheek… his daughter, his successor? Not a desirable outcome, but it wouldn't be the first time in Hyrule's history.

"It's a possibility," the King conceded, "but people wouldn't like being ruled by a woman, especially in these difficult times."

"I know," said his daughter, "and I don't want the crown, but it's there as an option, if Verdin really is… just remember that all isn't lost, father."

The King nodded. "Yes. That's true. But Verdin is still prince, and whether or not he's a captive in some Gerudo prison, we have no choice but to assume he's dead." Better to believe his son was dead than to picture him rotting away in some boiling cell. Better to believe him dead than to kindle false hope.

He stopped his pacing, staring at a portrait of his son, made five years ago. Verdin was slightly shorter back then, but otherwise hadn't grown much. His face stared out of the portrait, expressionless but belied by his confident posture and the casual way he gripped the sword by his side.

"He was well-liked by the people," the King said, mostly to himself. "When they find out that we've lost Verdin…"

"…then they'll have another good reason to hate the Gerudos and enlist themselves, father," said Zelda, with a confidence he knew to be forced.

"If only things worked that way," he said bitterly. "His death will be a demoralising blow to our efforts in the west. And we've lost territory, on top of that. The Gerudos are almost into the mountain ranges now. Right now, our higher ground is the only thing keeping them from swarming into Hyrule."

He continued staring at that portrait, but with less grief and more frustration. The boy (well, he was only twenty-something, _practically_ a boy) should have won that battle. The Hylian army had always relied on the strength of its sheer numbers, but it had never cost them much, at least not as much as they'd lost this time around. Why, a few hundred of the slaughtered men had been well-trained. Verdin had lost an easy battle, and the King of Hyrule was left mourning the dead and paying the price for his son's ineptitude. It was the prince's fault; how could he have lost so easily to those barbarian Gerudos?

"I taught him all there was to know," he said moodily, glaring at the portrait of his son.

Still sitting in his chair, his daughter inhaled. Cautiously, she said, "Father, there's no sense in blaming Verdin or yourself…"

"Verdin was my _son_, girl," said the King, voice rising, not taking his eyes off the painting, and picturing his son's dead body despite himself.

"Verdin is only human, father," said Zelda evenly. "Hylian royalty or not, nobody is without weakness."

He tore his eyes away from the portrait and turned his glare to his daughter. "He was my son. Who are you to speak of him like that?"

Zelda stiffly folded her hands on her lap. "If mother was still alive, she'd want you to–"

He must have struck her. He didn't remember making two long strides across the room, nor did he recall swinging his outstretched palm hard across her face, but that must have happened, because a moment later he was breathing heavily and she'd fallen off the chair but had caught herself against the oak desk, her other hand clutching a reddened cheek.

They stared at each other wordlessly for a moment, and he felt that flash of rage begin to die away, slowly giving way to a pang of guilt. For a split-second, his dearly-departed wife was standing over his daughter, a disappointed expression on her beautiful face. Then she was gone, and he was alone in the room with his daughter again.

Half a minute passed, both of them frozen where they were. Then Zelda stood up abruptly. Wordlessly, she strode to the door and swung it open.

"Wait…" he said, regaining his voice at last, and reaching a hand out for her. There was a mad sort of desperation in his voice, as if he was trying to undo the last two minutes. "My daughter… Zelda…"

"Don't follow me," she said emotionlessly, and she slammed the door shut her with a surprising violence for a lady.

The King didn't follow her; he walked to the chair she'd been sitting on and slumped into it.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there for, but it felt like an eternity. Enough time to calm himself; enough time to reflect on his thoughts; try as he might, though, he couldn't quite reclaim that emotionless state that he had begun the morning in. He would have to let his guilt and grief and all the other emotions dissipate of their own accord.

When he was ready, he straightened the chair back into its original position, and placed the half-open texts on his desk into a neat pile, where the servants could return them to the royal archives. It only took a minute, but when he was done the room looked undisturbed.

"Nothing happened in here," he said, knowing full well that he was talking to himself, but nobody would hear, so why not? "Everything's as it should be."

He laughed sadly.

* * *

One of the roosters was crowing, which meant it was officially day. The sun had been up for a minute or two already, though, so the rooster wasn't much use, was it?

Talon was loading the wagon with crates packed full with the farm's main export, milk. He'd been running this farm for years, and he reckoned it made more money than a lot of town folks could boast to. The special breed of cows they kept didn't hurt: on top of its nutritional properties, the milk was actually a brilliant general-purpose remedy (Talon himself swore it worked wonders on hangovers), and there were always more people willing to buy it.

He heard footsteps behind him and threw a glance over his shoulder. It was his elder daughter. "Mornin'," he grunted, and turned back to the task of loading crates onto the wagon.

Nemia was built like someone on Talon's side of the family: sixteen but not particularly tall, black eyes and black hair (which had been cut in a lazy, unconcerned manner that screamed _introvert_). Despite this, she reminded Talon strongly of his late wife, Emila.

Emila was the beautiful, tall red-haired woman who had happened into Talon's life a few years after his father's death. She was a self-taught mage, with a natural predisposition towards good-health spells, and she'd turned up at the ranch in answer to an open call for help, when a nasty infection had crippled half of Talon's livestock. Whether it was one of those 'divine pairings' that Malina so fervently believed in, or simply mutual loneliness, Talon and Emila had shared a real love. They'd married without fanfare and she stayed mostly housebound after that. When Malina was two and Nemia six, Emila had died in childbirth, the last of many failed births. It was a painful death, but not an unhappy one. Happiness was the word… when Talon thought of Emila, he liked to think that they'd been happy together.

"Morning. Dad, which towns exactly are you going to?" said Nemia, interrupting his pleasant reminiscence.

"Wha…?" He turned around, leaning against the side of the cart. "Oh, just Castle Town today." That was the biggest town in Hyrule, built around the royal castle. It was four hours north for a heavy, goods-laden cart and three hours back for an empty one.

Nemia definitely took after her mother, from the way she tilted her head slightly to the left whenever she started speaking, to her dreamy, unconcerned personality. Not to mention her smatterings of magical prowess: Emila had made an attempt of raising their firstborn in her image, and Nemia had taken to it quite readily, learning simple healing charms and even how to read, quickly and willingly. When Emila died, Nemia's interest in her mother's former trade hadn't waned.

"Could you please get a couple of herbs for me?" said Nemia, hands crossed.

Talon couldn't think of a good reason to decline; he was expecting a fair amount of money today. "Sure thing. What do you need, Nemia?"

"Well, if…" She stopped, frowned, and said, "Link will know. Just ask him."

Talon smiled, nodded, and turned back to the crates of milk, assuming the conversation was over.

Equally evocative of her mother was Nemia's irrational, romanticised fawning over Link, an affection which the silly kid seemed to return. Talon understood why the boy was deluded enough to like her – being cooped up on a farm with nobody but the owner's daughters for company would do that to someone. Talon had often warned them that the moment Link met another girl believably his age, the (admittedly cute) display of puppy love would end in a heartbeat, to which one of them invariably asked if Malina had put him up to this.

Talon loaded the last of the crates and brushed his hands together in satisfaction. Whenever Link managed to goad two decent horses out of the stable, they'd be off. It looked set to be a good day for travelling; the skyline didn't exactly scream 'thunderstorm', and the strange weather they'd had over the past couple of days seemed to have stopped.

Whenever Link came back with the horses… what was taking the boy so long? With a silent shrug, Talon turned from the milk cart and started walking to the stables. He whistled all the way.

* * *

"You're just trying to annoy me," said Ajula, trying to shake some sand from her left-hand sandal.

"No, I'm serious. Why would I want to be annoying to you, sister?" said Rougii. Unlike her companion, she completely ignored the sand grinding between her feet and footwear, because in the middle of the desert your feet never stayed clean for long.

"As I said, my friend, no amount of training could compensate for the burden of a shield in close combat," replied Ajula. "It is defensive in nature, it unbalances you, and it affords you less protection."

"And I say that in the hands of an expert, all weapons can be made effective," said Rougii, shifting the weight of the curved rod on her shoulders as it started to lean on one side. The rod was made of iron, with hooks on both sides that held together watertight boar-hide pouches. Originally these rods had been straight-shaped, but that invariably required a hunched back and damaged posture, so over time they had become curved so that their weight rested on the shoulders, not the back. Out here in the desert, little matters of practicality like this could magnify into life-or-death outcomes.

They were both carrying water back from one of many hidden waterholes to Fort Dragmire, the largest complex in the entire desert, where most of the People lived at any given time. Built into the natural curve of the land, it wasn't exactly paradise but it was certainly the best that their people had.

"You're mad, sister," said Ajula. "When we've put the water away safely, let's put your words to the test, yes, Rougii?"

"All right," said Rougii; this was exactly what she had wanted her friend to say all along.

Rougii and Ajula were similar: they were both red-haired, dark-skinned (sun exposure, no doubt) and thin (as one would expect from the inconsistent food supplies). They were considerably stronger and more resistant to pain than most Hylians of their age. At the age of six, both of them had begun their training in _birsaif_, the two-sword combat style for which their warriors were renowned. Both of them used the term 'sister' not in the usual, close-relation sense but as a term of casual familiarity. Neither of them had ever gone further from the desert than the border of the eastern mountain range that separated the desert from Hyrule. Both of them were female. In short, they were two typical Gerudos, returning home from water gathering.

Reaching the fort, Rougii spied three Gerudo girls loitering in the shade outside a side entrance, probably talking amongst themselves. Nobody seemed to be doing anything of any use this morning, not after last night's festivities. Two days before, their great leader Arado had returned from battle with a cohort of warriors and three prisoners in tow, and in celebration of this they had feasted last night.

Well, seeing as the girls weren't making themselves useful, Rougii thought that this would be a good opportunity to delegate.

"Hey! Girls!" said Rougii, as they came within shouting distance. She wasn't really much older than any of them; her coming-of-age was still a few months into the future. However, she had their respect – she was something of an 'elder sister' to most of the Gerudos around her age, with her quiet arrogance and her convenient-but-meaningless parentage.

The three girls in the shadow of the building looked up from whatever they were talking about. "Oh, Rougii – good morning, sister," said the one furthest on the right. There was a mild tone of apprehension in her voice; Rougii had a tendency to boss the girls around.

To her side, Rougii heard Ajula snort in annoyance. _I'm here too_, she might as well have said.

"You seem very relaxed, my friends," said Rougii. "If you're not too busy, could you all please do me a favour? _Now_?"

The same girl as before – Velli, that was her name – spoke: "Of course, Rougii, anything for you." While that could easily have been a sarcastic jab, she spoke sincerely; Rougii tried to avoid making enemies of her fellow Gerudos, even petty ones. She also tried to repay these little favours in kind, usually in extra rations that none of the other girls dared steal from the stores.

"Thank you," said Rougii, bowing her head customarily. "Ajula and I have just returned from a waterhole, as you can see. Please, take these waterbags to be stored."

The other three girls glanced among each other and shrugged. "Sure," said Velli, "anything else, sister?"

"No, thank you," said Rougii, kneeling down so that she could more easily remove the rod and waterbags from her shoulders. Ajula had already done the same.

The three other girls picked them up without much difficulty, holding them pointing forwards so that it was easier to manoeuvre indoors. Carefully, they began to squeeze inside.

"Wait," said Rougii, remembering something, and the last of the girls to go through the archway glanced back. "The spoils of war from the most recent battle – could you get a shield and leave it out here?"

The girl nodded and disappeared inside.

"A shield?" said Ajula, stretching her arms now that she had nothing to carry. "Still trying to prove that point of yours?"

"Exactly," said Rougii. "Come on, let's get some blunt-edges." She started towards the archway.

"As if I had a choice," said Ajula lightly, and she followed her in.

They made their way through the fort interior, past sparse living quarters and guarded storeroom archways, up a staircase into one of the training grounds, past plenty of young and old Gerudos who greeted them in passing, though to another storeroom entrance, covered by a tattered cotton veil. Rougii pushed it past without a second thought.

This storeroom was specifically for the training grounds. Stuffed effigies of Hylian soldiers were piled up against one wall, full of holes and slash marks that indicated how much use they got. In the middle of the room sat a pile of wooden bows and arrows that never got any use – desert winds tended to render these things pointless.

Ajula stood at the entrance to the room, leaning against a wall, while Rougii treaded around this collection of toys until she found what she was looking for – a collection of barrels filled with blunted metal weapons. Most of these were scimitars, and she pulled two of these from the barrel and tossed them across the room, where they landed right at Ajula's feet with a clatter.

Rougii then spent a couple of minutes looking to see if they had any practice swords in that ridiculous unbent shape which Hylian soldiers used. They did not, so she grabbed a scimitar for herself and crossed the room. She exited, followed by Ajula.

"So you think that a Hylian farmer could really best a Gerudo warrior in combat, sister?" said Ajula mockingly, running the side of her blades against her arm to confirm that they were indeed blunt.

"No, you're twisting my words, Ajula," said Rougii, navigating the way back to the side of the fort they had entered from. "All I'm saying is having a shield instead of a second sword is in no way a disadvantage."

"But it is," said Ajula, "everyone knows that it unbalances you. And your opponent will always know which side you're attacking with."

"You said that before," said Rougii. "I believe that any decent piece of metalwork can be made formidable in the hands of a capable warrior."

"And _you_ are that capable warrior?" said Ajula, looking sceptical. After a moment, she added, "I suppose you'd have a better chance than most."

It was true. Since beginning her training at the customary age of six, Rougii had found she had a natural affinity for the martial arts, with many of the women who trained her commenting that she could become one of the People's best warriors one day. If she was still alive by the time Lord Arado (may-he-live-forever) fell, she would be prime material for leading the Gerudo warriors, by birthright if not by prowess.

Now and then, some of the more adventurous trainers let her experiment with some of the ancient, deprecated weapons left by generations-ago Gerudo warriors, weapons with prongs and chains and double-blades and even hinges. Through these lessons, Rougii had begun to see that all styles of close combat started from a few basic ideas – balance, control, momentum – and though she hadn't really thought it through yet, she was certain there was a way to apply these ideas to shields. Ajula was right, though, they were ridiculous things to be carrying around in battle, and if Rougii hadn't relished the challenge, she wouldn't have gone anywhere near broaching the subject.

When they returned to the exterior of the fort, a worn, blood-stained shield was lying in the sand, as she had requested. She picked it up, seeing the handle, and considered it for a moment.

"Having doubts?" said Ajula.

"Which side should I hold the shield with?" said Rougii.

"Hmm…" said Ajula, seriously considering the question. "Well, I think the Hylians carry them with their left arms."

"Left it is," said Rougii, working the leather bindings on the back of the shield around her left forearm and wrist. She gave the shield a few experimental swings, finding it slightly loose but still controllable.

Ajula watched her with bemusement. "Even if you did manage to hit me, it wouldn't prove your point."

"Really?" said Rougii. "Let's argue over _that_ afterwards. Come at me."

Ajula stepped offline to stay in the shade, and then complied, half-running forwards, swinging her blunt scimitars in front of her in a criss-cross pattern. The criss-crossing was a standard tactic, done in the hope of disorienting or distracting an opponent, and making it difficult to be stabbed while approaching. Rougii waited as her friend approached, waving the shield from left to right to test its weight…

Ajula came into contact distance and did two things at once: she jabbed forward with her left scimitar and slashed left-to-right with her right one. Rougii blocked reflexively, the sword in her right hand deflecting the jab and the shield in her left hand colliding with Ajula's slash. She had to press awkwardly with her shield hand to keep it in position; contests of strength would be difficult when the shield's centre of gravity was on her wrist.

Their arms were both crossed and they pushed against each other for half a second before Rougii decided that she couldn't hold that position and leaped backwards out of the lock, shield raised to protect her against Ajula's follow-up swipes.

"What do you think?" said Ajula, taking a small step back so that there were two sword-lengths between them. "Too hard?"

"I can work with it, Ajula," said Rougii, sidestepping slowly so that she was again in the shade. "You're right; the shield is shorter and harder to push with, but it's wider than a blade, sister. That should compensate."

"If you say so," said Ajula, and she took the offensive again.

They went back and forth; mostly back. The lack of a second weapon kept Rougii on the defensive, and she kept retreating, sidestepping every time she came into the sun's reach. Ajula kept coming at her with different varied attacks and feints, and Rougii tried one after another unsuccessful counterattack. Every time they seemed to settle into a rhythm, one of them was quick to break it up with an extra stab. Whatever advantage the second sword might have given Ajula was completely nullified by Rougii's natural versatility.

After about two minutes of this, Rougii was so used to the shield's extra weight that she no longer had to consciously think about the imbalance when she moved, and Ajula seemed to be taking the fight slightly more seriously, choosing her actions to take advantage of the shield. Neither of them had broken eye contact; that much they'd both learnt years ago.

"Not bad," said Ajula. "So you might be able to hold off death using a shield. That makes sense. It is a very defensive instrument."

Rougii considered. "All right. Let me try something. I'll use this shield to deflect both your arms at once, and then cut off your head."

"So confident?" said Ajula sceptically. "You're not trying to trick me, are you, friend?"

"No trick," said Rougii.

She raised her shield to the side as if to use it as a club, and charged forward. At the last minute, she lowered the shield and brought her scimitar above her head. Ajula crossed her swords and raised them to meet the overhead blow; she'd been expecting it. Instead of following through, though, Rougii let her sword fall short and instead rammed her shield into Ajula's guard as she'd promised. The momentum of the shield – something that would be nigh-impossible to achieve with a thin sword – was enough to knock Ajula off-balance, and Rougii followed up immediately, hitting her friend in the neck with the flat of her sword.

Ajula laughed. "Nice."

"Point proven?" said Rougii, stepping back and dropping her sword. She started to remove the shield from her left arm–

"Very _unorthodox_, daughter," said someone older from the side, startling both of them. "Using non-Gerudo weaponry effectively is difficult… but pointless."

Still looking at the shield, it took Rougii a moment to identify the voice, deep, smooth and commanding. "Aunt Lamoora," she said – again, not to a close relation but to an elder. "I hope I haven't offended you, have I?"

Rougii looked up and yes, it was second-in-command Lamoora – with first-in-command Lord Arado standing by her side, wearing an intimidating black robe. Urk. She dropped to her knees quickly and bowed customarily as still-children-for-the-next-few-months were expected to. "Milord Arado. Forgive me, I didn't see you."

Lamoora started to say something chastising, but Lord Arado cut in. "You, with the shield. Why the shield?"

Rougii gaped, swallowed, and said, "We were arguing. I wanted to see if it was possible for a Hylian soldier to best a Gerudo warrior."

Lord Arado arched his eyebrows at this and exchanged glances with Lamoora. "A very understandable debate, I'm sure," he said, condescension dripping from his every syllable. "But that little play fight of yours proved nothing."

_How much of that did they see?_, wondered Rougii. "Yes, milord?" she said noncommittally, because arguing with the alpha male of the People was a ridiculously stupid idea.

"Yes," said Lord Arado. "You might have proven better than your friend, but you are a Gerudo, trained in _birsaif_ and whatever else it is you're being taught. If any army aside from ours had such well-trained warriors, I have never heard of it."

"But what if the Hylians learnt how to fight properly?"

"The Hylian army has neither the patience nor the ability to train its hundreds of idiot farmers. Even if they–" Arado caught himself, seeming to realise he wasn't talking with one of his trusted warriors, and narrowed his eyes. "You're argumentative, aren't you, girl?"

"I apologise, milord," said Rougii, bowing her head.

Lord Arado seemed to be trying to remember something. "And your swordsmanship is better than most… are you one of mine?"

"Yes," said Lamoora, jumping in as if eager to contribute to the exchange. "Rougii is your eldest, in fact."

"Ah, yes, I remember now," said Lord Arado, recognition flaring in his eyes as he stared at Rougii. "Yes, her strong bloodline shows. Perhaps we have a first-class warrior in the making."

"Perhaps so, milord," said Rougii carefully (and she could have sworn she heard Lamoora muttering the same thing).

Arado seemed to be thinking about something else now. "You'd do… perhaps you could do me a favour, _Rougii_?"

Well, he'd asked nicely, he'd even used her name, and he could have her exiled on a whim… it was hard to refuse. "Of course, milord," said Rougii with the utmost sincerity.

"I need someone to deliver a message to the Hylians in the border," Lord Arado said. "As soon as possible."

"It would be an honour to do so for you," said Rougii, bowing her head again for good measure. "What message is that?"

"I was going to announce it during the executions tonight," said Lord Arado, "but seeing as you won't be there… I'm keeping one of the prisoners alive."

"What? Why?" said Rougii. "Milord," she added quickly.

"Well, I believe one of these prisoners is _royalty_," said he. "Isn't that wonderful? Wouldn't it be an _honour_ to be in the presence of a prince of Hyrule?"

Rougii was amazed. "That's… why, he'd know everything about the…" She forced herself to internalise this train of thought. "So I'm delivering a ransom message, milord?"

"Ransom?" said Arado, as if this idea was entirely ridiculous. "No, just tell them that he's alive for now. See if it gets a reaction; their army is no threat to us right now." He smiled. "I'm not letting this brat go that easily."

Lamoora looked as if she wanted to say something but was restraining herself.

"I'll pass that message to them," said Rougii.

"You'll go within the hour, then," said Arado. "I'll give you something to show them."

When she bowed again, he added, "You're _dismissed_," in an impatient tone.

Rougii was quick to get the message.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed; it's really reassuring to know that someone out there took the time to look at my work.

If it's not pushing my luck, more "I read your story and I didn't hate it" reviews would be nice… Seriously, though, if you think I'm trying to cram too many original characters into the first two chapters (or if my weird incarnation of Link has just caused you to become physically ill), that's information I could use.

Well, I'll just stop typing, then…


	3. Milk Run

**_Evil's Bane_**

* * *

**Milk Run**

* * *

They were riding, as they had been for a few hours now, the morning sun blazing to their right and an expanse of tall grass and trees to their left.

Talon sat at the front of the cart, stirrups clutched tight in both hands. Steering the cart was a task requiring minimal effort, since the horses pulling were smart enough to follow the well-trodden dirt path. For the most part, all he did was to stare straight ahead, occasionally bringing the horses back on track, all the while staring at some fixed point in the distance and thinking of completely irrelevant things.

Link, meanwhile, sat perched atop several milk barrels, legs dangling over the side of the cart. The sun was at his back and so he just stared out into the countryside, being alternately entranced and bored by the scenery. At the back of his mind he had the nagging feeling that he'd been cheated out of twenty minutes' extra sleep.

Since today was a milk run day, they would be walking among town people, who (no doubt) would be out in numbers, in the huge throngs which Link had come to associate with Castle Town. He had no idea how so many people were able to live together in such close quarters. Of course, he knew they'd all just accept it as matter of course, but there was something both frightening and liberating about the anonymity which those crowds hinted at. When nobody knows you, you feel like you can get away with anything.

On the flip side, no doubt everyone would be giving them looks just 'cause they weren't from town. As such, Link had made an effort to look presentable. Specifically, he'd switched the sweaty, mud-stained linen undershirt he'd been wearing for the past week for a new slightly-starchy white linen one. He'd also spent about ten seconds going through the motions of untangling his not-short-enough brown-blond hair, and – on an impulsive decision he was beginning to regret – he'd even pulled on a cheap green-dyed cotton tunic he hadn't noticed before on top of his other clothes to make it look as if he wore unnecessary amounts of clothing all the time, like he'd noticed a lot of city people did. Already, the tunic felt as if it was digging into him around the stomach, and, now that the sun was up, the extra warmth was becoming uncomfortable. Too late to take it off, though; he'd already committed to wearing it.

"Bored back there, kiddo?" said Talon from up front.

Link jumped slightly, realising that they'd been travelling in silence for the last half hour at least. He decided that right now, riding out in the open, he preferred the silence.

"No," he said, "I'm fine."

For a moment Talon didn't say anything, and Link thought he might have successfully cut the conversation off, but then–

"Nemia mentioned to me," Talon added, "that there was some plants or something she wanted from town."

There was clearly an implicit question there, and Link knew he should answer it, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He kept staring into the distance, and hopefully Talon would think he hadn't heard.

"…right?" added Talon.

No choice now. "Mmm," he mumbled noncommittally.

"She said you knew what they were," said Talon.

"Yes," said Link. "She made me memorise a whole list of 'em yesterday; took forever." The moment the words came out of his mouth he regretted it – _now_ who was trying to prolong the conversation?

Talon chuckled. "Sounds like my girl." He tugged at one of the reins, gently nudging the horses left. "Don't know what you see in her."

"No idea what you're talking about," said Link, remembering why he'd been trying to avoid conversation to begin with.

"Of course not," said Talon, and Link could tell he was smiling just from his tone of voice. "Don't take this wrong, but you're far too young to be falling head over heels with every girl your age you can get your hands on. I know what that's–"

"What's that supposed to mean, _every _girl my age?" said Link, peeved.

"Link, you live on my farm," chuckled Talon. "Who else _do_ you know besides me and my girls, eh?" He laughed again. As if there was anything remotely funny about it.

Link sighed angrily, decided resolutely to ignore anything else Talon said until they got to Castle Town, and then stared out at the passing scenery with a renewed intensity. To his relief, Talon seemed to have run out of things to say, and so there was nothing to distract him.

Now and then (and this was one of those times), Link wondered what his life would be like if that horse hadn't kicked his father's head in when he was barely old enough to walk. Most likely, they'd probably have kept moving with his father, from farm to farm and town to town, never settling in as a farmhand or a street-sweeper, always wandering, always changing. A very different life than the one he had, yes, but maybe a better one, because surely his father would have been better than Talon at bringing him up. As it was, Link could barely remember his father's face, though Talon told him that these days there was a fair resemblance between dead father and growing son.

A wave of drowsiness hit him and he decided just to close his eyes for a couple of minutes to make it go away…

* * *

Sitting out here, on a balcony overlooking the castle walls, she could see most of Castle Town in all its daily humdrum. People ran back and forth through the crowded streets and winding alleys: tradesmen, merchants, housebound wives and children, craftspeople, all of them so distant from her vantage point, intangible. And yet even from here she could feel the throbbing of that clockwork society down there, separated from the regiment of the castle by one set of walls and from the beauty of the surrounding countryside by another.

Zelda was not down there, but she found it peaceful to observe and imagine she was there among the commoners – the normal people. Through her handheld spyglass she could see what they saw; if she listened hard enough she could make out what might have been the glorious cacophony of the crowds. If she wanted to, she could just slip straight into town wearing something less expensive; the guards always graciously turned a blind eye or two, and between her regular lessons in both courtesy and defensive magic, she doubted that she could get into any real trouble down there.

Right now, though, she was sitting up here, trying unsuccessfully to distract herself from the issue of her father. The main reason that she couldn't do this was that her cheek was still stinging from where her father had struck her. She was sure it was the first time he'd done something like that to her – the King was not a violent man, at least not in the safety of his own castle. Her father was different, that much was obvious, and she wasn't entirely certain that this was a temporary thing.

"What's wrong, father?" she muttered, and she realised that it was pointless to stand here, looking out from this balcony. She wasn't in the right mood to draw any comfort from other people's happiness. In fact, she could feel a familiar buzz in her veins which screamed _think, think, think _at her again and again, the same sort of feeling she got when her magic tutor tried to teach her an intricate spell or when her father's treasurer posed her a difficult mathematical problem. The feeling was neither painful nor pleasant, it just _was_.

So Zelda was in a thinking mood; now what was the problem she had to solve? Her father, obviously, and the way that he was acting now that Verdin was gone – but no, that wasn't true, His Majesty had been changing in that inexplicable way since before her brother was shuttled off to the Gerudos' desert. So that didn't really explain anything… Lingering obsession with her mother would explain the emotional swings. Poisoning, while sensible in theory, was such a romantic notion that she dismissed it straight away. Stress from some sort of political situation was possible, although what that might be was a mystery to her. Senility? Goddesses help Hyrule if that was the case. So many possible factors… so many potential solutions. She was going to have forgotten this by tomorrow, she realised. This was something she was going to want to have in writing.

Without having realised it she'd started walking while she thought, and she had to look around for a moment before realising she wasn't far from her bedroom. That would do; she'd have everything she needed in there.

Entering her room, she walked straight over to the small wooden desk that sat in the corner and pushed a stack of folklore books aside. Next she pulled out a sheet of blank writing paper and flattened it out on the desk, right in front of a full black inkwell. She dipped a brass pen into the ink, and stared at the piece of paper.

"Right," she said, and in large letters she wrote 'FATHER' in the middle of the sheet of paper. That was simple enough. Further down, she wrote 'ME' and 'VERDIN', so that the three names formed an equilateral triangle. Besides her brother's name she added a question mark because she wasn't sure if he was dead or not.

Two quick strokes of the pen and there was now an arrow running from her father to her brother. Besides it, she printed the words 'successor, legacy, responsible?' Recalling one of her other ideas, she added 'MOTHER' near the edge of the page, circling the name and drawing a line back to her father. Her mother was dead, her brother was possibly dead; she added the word 'again' to another line joining the first two. 'Senile?' went next to her father's name, with the question mark circled.

She dipped the pen in the ink again, and paused. The mad energetic feeling was still there, and now that she'd exhausted the obvious the more interesting ideas could be explored…

She lost track of time, as what had begun as a thought diagram for helping her father became an abstract, speculative map of the people whose decisions affected Hyrule on a daily basis. Arrows and circles floated between officials and a large blob of words with the label 'THE PUBLIC' appended to it. The links emanating from her brother and her father became more and more bloated, to the point where the lines shooting from them became an unruly tangle on the page. She hadn't connected her name to anything, because right now she thought she was neither influential nor impressionable. She could have drawn in the handful of tutors her father had employed, but right now they seemed irrelevant.

Right now there was barely enough room on the paper to write another word, and yet it was sparser than she would have liked, uncertainties and lack of information preventing her from making the annotations and shorthand symbols she wanted to.

Now that there wasn't enough room to add anything else, though, she could feel that invigorated mood fading, and she stared at the sheet of paper which now described considerably more than her father's recent ill temper – the bleak condition of Hyrule was described there, written both in words and between the lines.

_What was the point of that?_, she wondered, and she felt a hint of annoyance because at the time she'd been sure there was a very good reason for drawing that. There were no clear-cut answers here, just things she'd already known organised and ranked in importance. This wasn't going to help her father in its current form, and it certainly wasn't going to benefit Zelda in any way…

A knock sounded at the door to her room, and she glanced up from the desk to look. Her eyes stung slightly as she refocused them for the first time in a while.

"Yes?" she said, realising that she was thirsty and needed a drink.

"Zelda," said a man, his voice muffled through the door, "it is I, Cerdes." He was the head servant in the castle and was in charge of all housekeeping.

"What is it?" asked Zelda. "Is lunch ready?" She hadn't been here for _that_ long, had she?

"Not yet," replied Cerdes. "May I come in, Zelda?" (Zelda had made a point of making the servants address her by name; it was less impersonal.)

"Certainly," she said; it wasn't as if she'd been doing anything wrong.

The door opened slowly and Cerdes took three steps into the room, standing stiffly.

"Princess… pardon me, _Zelda_, His Majesty has requested that you see him in his private quarters."

"Ah," said Zelda. Not particularly surprising. If the King was becoming more aggressive towards her, it made sense that he'd want to speak to her and try to justify what he'd done. No doubt it would all turn out to be her fault for stepping out of line or some other selfish explanation.

"Tell him that I'm busy right now, and would not like to be disturbed," she said, and it wasn't exactly a lie.

Cerdes nodded, a knowing smile showing on his wrinkled features. "As you wish – but I should add something before you decide. His Majesty said you would probably decline, and he wishes to apologise for something."

Zelda blinked. An apology? Pleasant, but unexpected. She'd figured that his temper would last at least the day like his bad moods had been known to. Maybe she'd been wrong…

"I'll talk to my father," said Zelda, glancing back at her sheet of paper.

"I shall go tell that to His Majesty," said Cerdes, misinterpreting her body language. He started to turn back–

"No, wait," said Zelda. "I'll only be fifteen seconds."

She snatched the pen, and hovered over her father's name where it stood in the middle of the web. She crossed out the phrase 'illness/poison?', and wrote the word 'inconsistent' in their place.

"May I ask what you are doing there?" said Cerdes from across the room.

Zelda already knew what she wanted to write, so she allowed herself to answer him. "Nothing important," she said. "Just drawing." Now, if she could just find… there it was. She circled the word 'senile?' for good measure, adding the words 'lack of control' beneath it, only just managing to squeeze them between her father's name and another mess of crisscrossing lines.

"I see," said Cerdes. "What exactly are you drawing?"

"I'm not quite sure yet," she said, drawing a straight line between her name and her father's. "But," she added, "it's taking shape."

On her father's end of the line, she wrote 'guilt?'. On her end of the line, she wrote 'opportunity'.

She stood up. "All right," she said. "I'm ready to see him now."

* * *

Link had just finished unloading the barrels at their last port of call. He'd dragged the barrel into a dusty old storeroom in a merchant's store house, returning outside to find Talon engaged in talk with the merchant in question.

"Oh, Link," Talon had said, "I'm just trying to fix a price for this man here. He's gonna resell our milk in the far parts."

Talon had then shooed him away after supplying him with more than enough money to keep him occupied for the next while.

Now Link was wandering down one of the main roads of Castle Town, drawing a map of the streets in his head so that he could find his way back later. He'd hoped to find a street vendor and buy a much-needed lunch, but looking at the crowds, it seemed that it would take forever for him to get anywhere near a food stall. Instead, he was scouting for a store that might sell the herbs and other unusual goods Nemia had requested.

Unlike the smaller towns in the kingdom, there were shops for everything in Castle Town, from the expected, like groceries and firewood, through to more ridiculous things such as shops that specialised in books or shoes. It was funny and frightening – funny because it was ridiculous that anybody could make a living selling such a narrow range of wares; frightening because they clearly did.

In his wanderings around town, only one interesting thing happened to him – well, not really to him, but he noticed it at the time and remembered it for a while to come:

A couple of minutes before he found the herbs in a side street, he passed two men talking in the street.

One of them was wearing an official-looking set of robes, talking carefully as if afraid to misspeak in the way that authority figures sometimes did. The other was a large, stocky man, clearly anxious about something.

There was a lot of hand-waving and accusation involved… interesting. This one little conversation was the closest thing to civil unrest Link had seen in this upbeat town, and it was that more than anything else that made Link stop and listen to them for a moment.

The official-looking man said, "The Guild can hardly do anything in the outer… short of having a man… every road in the kingdom." (Link couldn't hear every single word through the noise of the crowd, but there was enough there to get the gist of what they were saying.)

"Windows smashed!" said the larger man, waving his hands wildly. "Buildings collapsed and my nephew… every end of my town is in ruins… You can't just dismiss it like that!"

"I assure you… not dismissing it," the other replied. "We're busy right now after last week's arrests, but… have time… we'll find the responsible party and ensure that justice–"

"I already _told_ you who it was!" the other said, raising his voice so that several other people in the area glanced in their direction. He seemed to notice this and dropped his voice again. "Almost everyone in town saw… wasn't trying to stay hidden…"

"Sir, I heard what you think you saw, and I've repor… to my superior, but for the last hundred, two hundred years, there's actually been… law against jesters in Hyrule. It can't–"

"I'm not lying!" said the bigger man, and for a moment it looked as if he was about to hit the man in robes. "We all saw…"

He glanced both ways and caught Link staring. Both of them lowered their voices. After a moments' pause, Link continued on his way, wondering what the upset could possibly have been.

* * *

Nowadays, Breakfoot Inn was all but empty at any time of day. It was becoming less and less common to see travellers passing through. Morrett, who ran the place, simply accepted this as the way things were – after all, _he_ could hardly do anything about foreigners concerned about Hyrule's wartime troubles, or the spreading rumours that the rock monsters of the mountains attacked travellers on sight. It was simply a bad time to be running an inn hidden deep in the eastern mountain trails of the kingdom.

It was the middle of the afternoon and there were three people sitting in a bar area built to seat twenty – the most crowded it'd been in some weeks. He was grateful for this; every person who rented a room or ordered a drink was a godsend, leaving him with that extra bit of money with which to appease the merchants who still strayed this far out, keeping him and his aging parents and the inn alive. And so Morrett went to any lengths to squeeze that extra drop of income from each and every person who walked through the door.

Now, he placed down another two mugs of ale in front of one very drunk fellow who slapped a handful of Rupees onto the counter – never trust complete strangers, always get them to pay upfront – and he said politely, "Yer' drink."

"It's a work of art," the other fellow said, looking deliriously happy, and he grinned at Morrett. Whoever he was, he'd been in here for hours it seemed, and every now and then he burst into the occasional story about how he was going to go and slay the rock monsters of the mountains. He wasn't the first idiot to run blindly into the mountains and never return, but Morrett wasn't about to tell him that – paying customer, after all.

Morrett returned the smile with practised ease, sweeping the money into his palm and moving from one table to another, where a man and woman had just entered and sat.

"How can I help you, sir?" he said, stowing the money into a pouch on his belt, and throwing another pleasant smile at the man.

The man stared at Morrett – or more accurately, at his beard – blankly, as if he hadn't fully understood. The woman wasn't paying attention, and was eyeing the dusty, dim surroundings uncertainly.

Morrett held the smile for a couple of seconds, and then, seeing as neither of them seemed to plan on speaking, took a step back. "Well, if y'all need anything–"

"Goddesses! Pardon me." It was the woman who spoke, surprisingly. "I was distracted…"

"Yes, we've had a rough journey," the man said, jumping in, "and we really ought to get something now."

"Sure," said Morrett, slightly relieved. For a moment he'd worried they didn't speak Hylian. "I can get some chicken boiling or roasted if you're hungry…"

"No thanks," said the man and woman near-simultaneously. They glanced at each other and laughed. It occurred to Morrett that they looked similar; perhaps they were related?

The man went on: "No, we'll just have something to drink, for now…"

Morrett registered the 'for now' gratefully, but now he was discreetly scrutinising the appearance of the two. They both had light brown hair and blue eyes, and were wearing strange-looking clothes over typical light chain-mail. The man was fairly tall, with a triangular jaw and high cheekbones. Slung on his chair were what appeared to be a metal bow and quiver, but Morrett didn't pay too much attention to that since most travellers liked to keep themselves armed in case of bandits. The woman, on the other hand, had a lovely face (or perhaps he'd just been in the mountains for too long), her shoulder-length hair tied back roughly and her slim forearms protruding from her unusual clothing.

"…speaking of which, what do you have to drink?" the man added, and Morrett realised that they'd been waiting for him to say something.

"Oh, everything you'd expect in an out-of-the-way place like this," he shrugged. "Ale, mead, red w–"

The woman interrupted. "I wonder if… do they still make that specialty milk?"

_Milk?_, thought Morrett, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Make what?" said the man.

"That milk… the one that everybody drunk when they weren't allowed to be drunk… the expensive one," said the woman, waving her hands in the air as if grasping at straws.

"Oh, right," said the man, smiling, "that one… um, what was it? Lonsell? Lonley? Something like that."

"Right," said Morrett, recognising that. "I know the one you mean. I think I still have a barrel or two left. Stuff never goes off, right?"

"That's the one," said the woman, nodding. "Good memories with that stuff."

"Two of those for now," said the man.

"Coming right up," said Morrett. "You'll have to pay upfront, if you don't mind."

They didn't seem to mind, and so he moved into the back and scrabbled around for their drinks. He found a crate full of jars behind a wine barrel, and grabbed two jars, bringing them up to the counter. He could barely remember how much it had cost him, so he estimated a reasonable price and then doubled that in his mind.

With two glasses of milk in hand, he returned to that table, checking briefly on the inebriated swordsman on the way, and put the drinks down. "That'll be eighty."

The man raised an eyebrow, but started to count money.

Not very far away, the doors burst open, sending a bell ringing wildly, and four, no, _five_ more people walked in.

"Be with ya!" Morrett called, still watching closely as the man counted out eighty Rupees. He greedily scooped up the money and stuffed it into his belt. There – safe. He looked up.

There _were_ five people entering now, four men and a woman, and they all stood just inside the door, watching him.

"How can I help you?" said Morrett, though the little pessimist at the back of his mind already knew.

"Give us the money," said the largest of the newcomers.

Morrett noticed several things at once – firstly, these people were all armed, and they looked as if they'd done this before; secondly, his heart was starting to be painfully fast; thirdly, his hand had drifted to the money patch on his belt against his will; fourth, the drunk guy at the other table had suddenly sat up very straight, probably having decided to play hero. And for some inexplicable reason, the man and the woman who Morrett had just served seemed to find it all funny…

* * *

…well, it _was_ funny. Their second day back in Hyrule and they were already running into trouble. And the fact that the new people were also trying to rob the joint made it all the funnier.

"By the Goddesses, we're being robbed," said Johannes, trying to suppress his smile in case the thieves got twitchy.

"Farore help us," whispered Scarlet mockingly, her hand pressed tightly over her mouth. "What in the _world_ shall we do?"

"We had better just do what they say," Johannes whispered back with exaggerated despair.

Around them, a minor drama was unfolding.

"Please don't do this," the innkeeper was saying, holding up his hands. "I have my parents to think of. We can barely make do as it is."

"We don't care," said the apparent leader of the gang. He was large and stocky, and a very heavy-looking broadsword was slung over his back. "Give us the damn money or this won't gonna be pleasant for you." 'Bruiser' (as Scarlet silently named him) crossed his arms.

"I…" The innkeeper looked very pained, but he slowly reached for his belt.

"Now aren't you glad we didn't get real drinks?" said Scarlet quietly, gulping down her milk.

Johannes shrugged. "I say we switch targets for now. They probably have more on them than the inn does."

"Oh, sure," said Scarlet. "They don't look too threatening."

"They don't, do they? I'll bet you can handle them by yourself."

"You're on."

"Wonderful," said Johannes, leaning back lazily. "This is a good chair for somewhere so cheap."

Across the inn floor: "Check upstairs," said 'Bruiser', motioning to a staircase that led to the inn's guestrooms. "See if anything useful's lying around."

Two of the other thieves – a near-bald man carrying an axe, and the sole woman who had a crossbow slung over her shoulder – nodded and went up the stairs.

The innkeeper removed a leather pouch from his belt and held it out sadly. "Here," he said.

"Where's the rest?" said Bruiser, snatching it from him.

"In the back," said the innkeeper.

Before anything more could happen, a drunken bellow sounded from another end of the room.

"Stop, knaves!" cried the swordsman who had been sitting at the other table, climbing unsteadily to his feet. "You will not be robbing this inn today! I… I, Trevor the Bold, challenge you to…" 'Trevor' pulled out his sword, almost losing his balance.

The innkeeper stared at the swordsman blankly; Bruiser laughed, making a dismissive gesture with one hand, and the other two bandits moved towards the swordsman. One of them, wearing a red headband almost covering his eyes, pulled out a sword. The other, an older-looking man with a squint, was wholly unarmed.

"Mage?" wondered Johannes, indicating the latter.

"Probably," said Scarlet, standing up.

Squint and Headband rounded on the swordsman, who waved his weapon wildly, shouting, "Don't take another step!"

Headband swung at the swordsman, who ("Ha!" he cried) did a surprisingly effective job at parrying. Headband raised his eyebrows at this and began swiping at his opponent, alternating sides, but to no avail – drunk as he was, the other had retained enough survival instinct to block each of the incoming blows cleanly. After a few seconds, Headband broke it off, looking thoroughly annoyed. He retreated slowly back to where his boss stood.

"Din's sake, just kill him already," snapped Bruiser, although he seemed quite amused – it probably wasn't the first time the bandits had run into a would-be hero in the middle of a robbery.

"Ha! You see? You three aren't no match for me!" cried the swordsman, taking a triumphant step forward.

Squint raised both hands and shoved them forward, a look of concentration on his face. A ball of fire shot from his hands and hit 'Trevor the Bold' squarely in the chest. A hiss of grey smoke appeared and the swordsman staggered back, dropping his sword to claw at his own burnt flesh. He stumbled backwards, tripped, and fell back, hitting his head hard on the edge of his table.

"Oh my Goddesses," gasped Morrett, looking horrified.

Bruiser and Headband laughed like they'd seen it before. Squint stood there with a self-satisfied smile. Johannes remained in his chair, watching casually but one hand on his bow just in case things got serious. Scarlet was sauntering towards the mage.

Squint noticed her coming in the corner of his eye; he turned to face her and sneered, "What do _you_ want, wench?"

Scarlet didn't stop walking and Squint's eyes narrowed.

"You burn with him!" he shouted and hurled another burning spell at her.

She was about fifteen feet away and closing, and from here it was obvious the mage's aim was terrible. Even so, she flicked a hand, thought a spell, and the fireball blew out in midair.

Squint was surprised but recovered quickly, creating more and more burning spells in the hope that one would get through. The two other bandits stood and watched dumbly.

Scarlet could tell that her opponent was amateur, what with the strain on his face as he performed the same spell over and over. Still walking towards him, she let her left hand continually bat off the stream of fireballs while with her right hand she made the symbol for a simple painful spell…

"Bang," she whispered unnecessarily, and for half a second a crackle of static electricity flew between both mages, delivering a nasty little jolt. Scarlet had been expecting this and kept walking, while Squint stood rooted to the spot, his burning spells forgotten. In Scarlet's peripheral vision, Bruiser and Headband had finally seemed to realise that their pet mage was in trouble, and they were starting to move towards her.

She began throwing a potpourri of offensive spells at Squint – fireballs, of course, glittering ice needles, rays of light and darkness, condensed balls of air – but Squint was scared now, his arms were covering his head, and a combination of magic and survival instinct made for an effective defensive spell.

Across the room, Johannes stood up, tugged at the innkeeper, and pulled him down into the seat; wouldn't want him getting in the way.

"What's your name?" asked Johannes.

Morrett appeared to be in a state of shock. His lips were moving but he couldn't seem to form the words.

Johannes shrugged. "Drink," he said, pushing a glass of lukewarm milk across the table.

Scarlet was getting tired of Squint's sudden adrenaline-fuelled invulnerability. She was standing so close that she could almost touch him, and he was visibly using every last drop of energy in him to stay alive like the uncontrolled amateur he was – and yet somehow he was still standing. Lucky him. In another ten seconds she'd probably break through his magical barrier and swat him like a fly, but the two goons with swords would reach her first. She raised her left hand to her face, and dropped her right hand to her waist, palm-up.

"Change of tactics," she said to nobody in particular, and hit Squint in the face.

Whatever kind of spell the idiot was casting, it proved very ineffective against that, and he stumbled back with a broken nose. Just to be sure, she hit him again, this time with the side of her hand, and Squint dropped to the ground with a collapsed windpipe. That injury would last him the rest of his life – half a minute.

Scarlet dived to the ground beside Squint as Bruiser came into range, broadsword swinging, and grabbed the sword that the drunk fellow had dropped. She stood up again, and faced both Bruiser and Headband. She wasn't exactly brilliant with a sword, and there was no trick mage to get in her way now…

…so she reverted to the magical approach. She let off the first spell that came to mind, and two fireballs went flying from her free hand to the other two. It hit them, but there was no burning, no flinching. "How the hell?" she whispered…

…and then Bruiser came at her, swinging wildly and dangerously close. She stepped back steadily, moving around the table and moving her sword barely enough to deflect the incoming blows.

"_Parace serra_," she incanted, channelling energy into the sword she was holding. It shimmered, and a layer of yellow-green gas formed around the blade, swirling gently.

"What the…?" began Headband, and he moved off to the side. They were trying to pin her in on both sides, she realised.

"Good luck with that," said Scarlet, and she moved the other way, keeping them both in front of her.

Headband snarled and Scarlet smiled unpleasantly; he pushed a table aside and rejoined Bruiser, both of them hacking away the flat side of Scarlet's gas-shrouded sword as she moved back step by step towards the wall.

Just then, the remaining two bandits, Baldie and Archer-girl, re-emerged at the staircase. "What's that noise…?" began Baldie, trailing off as he took in Squint's unmoving body and the frantic swordplay occurring at the far end of the room. "By Din," he muttered in surprise, and took a step towards them.

"They're fine; let's kill the others," snapped Archer-girl, motioning towards the table where Johannes and Morrett were sitting.

Baldie seemed happy to follow orders; he swivelled around on one foot, and marched towards the table, gripping his axe menacingly. Archer-girl trailed closely behind him.

"By Nayruu's love, I don't want to die," said Morrett numbly.

"You probably won't," said Johannes reassuringly, and his grip tightened on his bow, which still rested on the chairs' head. "We've survived worse."

Archer-girl heard and snorted derisively. In a lightning-quick action, she pulled the bow from her back with her left hand, while removing an arrow from its quiver with her right. She snapped the arrow onto the bowstring, pointing it directly at Johannes' left eye. The whole motion took her all of half a second. She released the bowstring.

Johannes only had time to gesture with his free hand and let off a single spell before the arrow was flying at him. As it left the bow, the wooden arrow glowed bright red, then yellow, then white, steam rising from it as it burnt rapidly and intensely until it was nothing but a pointed piece of charcoal. Then it hit him in the face, crumbling and leaving nothing but ash and a painful burn along the left side of his face – nothing that couldn't be rapidly healed.

Neither Archer-girl nor Baldie saw the arrow burn; all they saw was it smashing into their prey's face, barely leaving a mark. Both their jaws dropped. They stood rooted to the spot, Archer-girl's bow hanging forgotten by her side and Baldie's axe fallen to the ground.

Johannes smiled. Moving lazily and deliberately, he picked up his bow and slipped an arrow in. To his amusement, neither of the aggressors moved from where they were, or made any attempt to get out of harms' way. He aimed the arrow across the room, directly between them, and on an impulse enchanted the arrow before letting fly.

The arrow flew across the room, straight between Archer-girl and Baldie, and slammed into the far wall, exploding with dazzling light. The entire room lit up for half a second as if the sun was shining inside the walls. A parlour trick, yes, but a fun one.

"That was a warning," said Johannes, readying a second arrow, and the two thieves finally started moving again, trying (wisely) to get the hell out of the way. He released the bowstring.

It was meant to hit the woman with the bow, and would have, except that Archer-girl had been pulling her companion towards her to shield her body, and it worked magnificently: Baldie stumbled in front of her, received an arrow just below the neck, and started bleeding profusely. He lost his balance and the two of them fell to the ground in a heap; Archer-girl struggling to get her companion's weight off her, Baldie dying.

When the light arrow had gone off, it had illuminated the entire room, and both Bruiser and Headband had glanced across the room, distracted. Seeing a gigantic opening, Scarlet had reached in and jabbed Bruiser in the leg with her magically-enhanced sword. She'd tried the same for Headband but he noticed in time and batted her sword back with his own.

Nobody attacked for a moment. Bruiser regarded his leg wound, which was really a tiny hole where a little blood and yellow-green gas seeped out. First he looked shocked, then angry, and then his eyes flashed with triumph.

"Coward!" said Bruiser, smiling menacingly. "You could have killed me, and instead you did _that_?"

Scarlet would have liked to explain that she didn't really like lopping people's heads off. Instead, she motioned at the wound, where the gas still swirled and said, "You deserve that."

Bruiser laughed and raised his sword to begin fighting again, but then yelled and clutched at his arm in agony. He started to say something but then staggered back, his body wracked with pain, and his skin turning pale. He began to cough out blood.

"Nayru's mercy!" whispered Headband, taking an involuntary step away.

"It's not contagious," Scarlet assured him. "It's just poison."

Bruiser kept standing there and screaming and bleeding, and they watched without moving as he fell to the ground and started clawing at his heart, his movements slowing with every breath. After a few more seconds, his eyes rolled over and he slumped to the ground.

Headband and Scarlet locked eyes.

"Just one scratch," said Scarlet, gripping the poisonous sword with both hands.

Headband gulped and ran for the door. Scarlet threw the sword after him, javelin style. It went through his back and he fell to the ground, trying to scream. A flick of her hand and the yellow-green gas dissipated from the sword.

"Is that all of them?" Johannes said to her. He was still sitting in the chair.

She glanced around the room. "I count five… yes, that's all of them…" Scarlet pointed at the girl with the bow, still struggling and clearly alive. "You missed one."

Johannes stood up and joined her. "What was the problem?"

"Didn't you see?" said Scarlet. "The last two were immune to fire, somehow."

Johannes examined Bruiser's dead body and pointed at his neck. "That amulet there?"

"Ah, might be," said Scarlet, ripping a small charm from the bandit leader. "Would you look at that. Fire-proof charms. Must have been scared of their own mage."

Johannes nodded. "Check the rest."

Scarlet started searching the bodies for valuables. Johannes crossed the room and did the same.

"You just killed them…" said Morrett weakly, finally having reclaimed his voice.

"They would have done the same," said Scarlet.

"Who are you?" managed Morrett.

"We're returning from a long journey outside of Hyrule," said Johannes absently, pulling another fire-proof charm from around the neck of the bald one. He regarded it with interest and slipped it around his neck to join a collection of other charms.

Scarlet nodded. "Yes, we've come back to collect an inheritance… hmm, is this yours?" She held up a pouch full of Rupees that the leader had stuffed into a pocket.

"Yes," said Morrett gratefully. He started to stand, and paused. "You're not going to give it back, are you?"

"Clever man," said Scarlet, shaking the pouch to hear the money rattle. "Consider it payment." When Morrett didn't respond, she added, "Well, we've just done you a huge favour. We have just saved your life from that pack of bandits. Also, I'm about to hang their heads outside your inn. You won't have trouble like that again…"

"I think I'm going to be sick," said Morrett numbly.

Scarlet continued: "…and since you seem so damn poor, that's all we're going to take from you. One bag of money that you would have lost anyway."

"Goddesses," muttered Morrett, springing up and dashing outside.

Johannes and Scarlet ignored him.

"Little archer-girl over here is still alive," said Johannes, motioning at the half-suffocating woman with the crossbow.

"That's nice," said Scarlet. "You want to finish it, or will I?"

Archer-girl started struggling even more underneath her dead companion's weight.

"I was thinking we keep her alive," said Johannes. "Keep her to carry the bags."

"Remember what happened to the last one?" said Scarlet. "It's not worth the trouble."

They both stared at the subdued archer, considering her.

"Or…" began Johannes.

* * *

"Bored?" said Malina, sticking her head into the cellar.

"Just get lost," said Nemia. "Doesn't the farm need you? Hungry cows and starved Cucco chickens…"

"All done," said Malina, with no small hint of smugness. What she didn't add was, _And good luck getting rid of me, sis_. "We have a few hours until they come home."

"Oh, wonderful," said Nemia with no little sarcasm. She carefully put her book down on top of a barrel of something-they-weren't-allowed-to-drink-yet, and turned to face her sister on the cellar steps. "So let me guess. You want to stay here and annoy me while Dad isn't around." She found herself tapping a foot impatiently. When was he _coming_?

"Daddy? Just him? You sure you aren't forgetting someone… _else_?" teased Malina. She hopped down the cellar steps, taking them two at a time. "Maybe… maybe there's a certain _boy_ or something? Someone you don't want me to talk about?"

"Pardon me," said Nemia, grabbing her book again. "I meant to say 'Dad and Link'. Is that better?"

"Aw, poor Nemia. You miss him alweady, don't ya?" said Malina, putting on a sad face. "I bet you do. I bet you just want to get back to all that silly stuff you talk about, don't you?"

Nemia seemed absorbed in her reading.

"That's so nice," Malina went on. "I mean, 'Oh, Link, you're so _handsome_ and all, I like you, I really do…'"

Nemia sighed and gave Malina a playful shove from halfway across the room. "I never said that!" she said.

"Hey!" said Malina crossly, and she walked over to Nemia. "What'cha doin', anyway?"

"Looking through some books, _obviously_," said Nemia, trying hard to remain patient.

"What books?" chirped Malina.

"They belonged to your mother," Nemia replied.

"Oh," said Malina, having run into a subject that she wasn't entirely knowledgeable about. "Did they?"

"Yes," said Nemia. She paused, and added, "This one's about enchantments you can put on animals. To stop them from getting sick, and things like that."

"Uh-huh," said Malina. She crossed her arms. "You really think you can do that too? Travelling around making money by doing little magic tricks."

"There's nothing trick-like about them," said Nemia.

Malina was clearly losing interest. "Okay, I think we're done talking." She poked Nemia in the ribs.

Nemia twitched a finger, thinking the incantation to the first spell she'd ever learnt, and poked Nemia back without moving a muscle. "Go sit under a cow or something."

Malina laughed. "Will do, sis." She started up the stairs.

Nemia smiled and went back to the book. Only a couple of seconds later–

_Bang!_

–and she looked up. Something outside had just made a very loud noise.

Malina was only halfway up the stairs. "What was that?" she said, taking a step back down.

"I don't know," said Nemia, dropping the book onto the floor without a second thought and walking quickly to the steps.

"What do you think it was?" said Malina.

"Probably nothing," said Nemia, not believing a word of it. She caught up to her sister.

"Let's go look. Together," said Malina.

It was a short walk from the cellar to the outside world, and when they got there, a cow was lying right outside the door. It wasn't moving.

"No!" said Malina, rushing over to the cow's side, and feeling its head.

"Is it dead?" said Nemia.

"I don't know," said Malina, wide-eyed. "I think so."

Malina hugged the cow's head close, whispering quietly to it. Nemia watched with object disgust.

Malina stood up. "That's horrible!" she said loudly. "It's _evil_! Who would do something like that?"

Nemia shook her head, unable to think of anything to say.

"I'm sorry about the cow," said a voice from nearby, "but I _was_ getting bored."

The two sisters looked around and saw him. A man in jester's robes stood still, close by, smiling eerily at them. His clothes were patched and frayed, and every now and then a crackle of red electricity ran through his body.

"Who are you?" said Nemia. "I don't know you."

"Did _you_ kill her?" said Malina furiously, pointing a finger at him.

"Kill who?" said Salencia, before realising she meant the cow. "Yes, didn't I just say? It was only a cow."

"Why?" said Nemia.

"Must I keep repeating myself?" said Salencia, the same smile on his face. He took a step towards them.

"Who are you?" demanded Malina, taking a step forward herself.

"Malina…" muttered Nemia, tugging her back.

"Why, I'm a jester!" said Salencia. He shook his head and the bells jingled violently, noisily. "Surprise!"

"What are you doing here?" said Nemia.

"Why, I thought you'd never ask," said the jester, smiling. "It's a bit complicated, but the short story is, I want to be famous again." He took another step forward.

"What?" said Nemia, exchanging a perplexed glance with Malina. Then she remembered that the jester looked dangerous and she pulled her sister back a couple more steps.

"Never mind," said Salencia. "You're not the ones I need to explain to… so, on to business."

He folded his arms and looked between them.

"So which one of you two does magic?"

Nemia and Malina kept backing towards the door.

"All right," said Salencia, "it's okay, I already know. It's the black-haired one." He gestured at Nemia. "I just wanted to see whether you tried to lie or something. It's funny. People trying to sacrifice themselves to save their kids."

"What are you going to do?" said Nemia, huddling her sister close.

"For now?" said Salencia. "Leave an impression."

He grinned, and they turned and ran.

* * *

"Almost there," said Talon, pointing ahead in the distance to where the ranch was now visible. "We'll be there in another twenty minutes."

Link nodded, trying not to get stuck in conversation again.

"Had a good day, yeah?" said Talon.

Link sat up straight. "What's that?" he said, pointing at the farm.

Talon frowned and squinted into the distance. It was hard to make out against the rays of the setting sun, but emanating from the ranch was what had to be…

"Smoke," he said. "Something's burning."

"Think the stables caught fire?" said Link, worried.

"I dunno," said Talon.

They kept riding home, but a little faster now.

* * *

**A/N:** That took longer than I'd hoped. The first few sections were incredibly painful to write, especially the bit setting up Zelda for some backseat governing…

In response to Duke Serkol's question about character names – I don't know; it just seemed weird using 'Malon' at the time.

Again, please drop a review – it doesn't need to take longer than fifteen seconds (ten with a fast connection), and it would be nice to know that somebody actually read this. If it makes it easier to think of something to say, critique the pseudo-fight-scene. Did it go by too fast, or did it drag? It an acceptable trade to identify the minor about-to-die characters by arbitrary nicknames? (It was either that, or naming every single one of them, or several paragraphs of 'Henchmen nos. 3 and 4 swung into action'.) Also, would be entirely tasteless if I occasionally dropped recaps of what had happened so far, at the start of every _n_th chapter?

I feel compelled to add something else, but I have nothing left to say…


	4. Delivered Swiftly

**_Evil's Bane_**

* * *

**Delivered Swiftly**

* * *

The sun was setting. It was going to be a cold night. 

Rougii shook the satchel hanging over her left shoulder, debating whether to switch it over to the other side. After a moment's thought, she decided it wasn't worth the trouble – as far as she could see, she was almost there.

The 'River of Sand' of the Gerudo Desert was the product of a wind that blew without cease from the south. It could turn from a thin, wispy line of sand trickling across the landscape into a full blown sandstorm in the space of minutes. Right now it moved slowly and gently, a ribbon of silk illuminated by the setting sun. It served as an unspoken border: right across the river laid the mountain ranges that separated the desert from the plains, and thus the People from the kingdom of Hyrule. For their part, the Hylians could never hold their ground once they crossed the river, pushed back both by Gerudos and the elements.

Rougii walked through the river without a second thought; her eyes were fixed firmly on a building not far away. The Hylians had erected an outpost right at the lip of the mountain trail, just as Lord Arado had told her. Lucky thing. Going any deeper into the mountains would mean falling into the net of forts and barricades that were said to lie along the mountain trails. If there was a reason that the People didn't control part of Hyrule yet, it was the way that the opposing army had wormed their large numbers into these mountains as a last defence. For a single girl, a border crossing was suicide…

Luckily, she wouldn't have to get any closer to this outpost. The wooden supports of the building didn't look very sturdy, as if the Hylians half-expected it to be torn down within weeks by desert storms and Gerudos. It was small and flat. There couldn't be more than a few dozen soldiers inside, probably less.

She kept walking, drawing closer and closer to the Hylian encampment with each step. There wasn't any sign of movement through the torch-lit windows, and for a moment she wondered if nobody was inside or if they weren't even on guard. Then, three figures emerged from one side of the building, all wearing Hylian armour and all carrying spears.

"Who goes there?" the middle one shouted. Beneath the thick Hylian accent, his voice wavered.

"Who do you think?" Rougii called back, raising her arms in a universal gesture of peace. "I am a Gerudo messenger. I mean no harm."

She was getting close enough to make out their eyes even in the dimming light. They all looked like they were in their early twenties, and they all seemed to be unaccustomed to the desert weather.

"Don't – don't come any closer!" the same soldier shouted, raising his spear. "Stop!"

She did.

"I am a Gerudo messenger," she repeated. "Who is in charge?"

The question was apparently a surprise to them; they muttered amongst themselves for a few minutes. She stood there patiently, rehearsing the major points of Lord Arado's message in her mind. Even so, in the quiet of the desert she could hear most of what they were saying without any real effort.

"What do we do?" said the soldier on the left.

"Damned if I know," said the middle one, who'd been addressing her.

"Should we kill her?" said the soldier on the left.

"It's a trap," whispered the one on the right with certainty. "They don't send messengers. She's probably one of their assassins. Trying to destroy this post."

"Maybe we should kill her before she can," said the soldier on the left.

"No, get Gergoff," said the middle one.

"Okay…" The soldier on the left seemed glad for an excuse to run back inside, turning and darting away before he'd finished speaking.

The remaining two exchanged glances and then turned to stare at her warily. The middle one took a slow breath. "Look… um… woman… just don't move. The captain – he'll be here in a minute. You can talk to him."

Rougii suddenly realised that they were far more intimidated by a single Gerudo girl than she was by them. She suppressed a smile. She'd been holding up her arms for a few minutes now, but they weren't even beginning to fatigue. When she'd been about eleven, one of the _saiflah_ (teachers of the fighting arts) had made her hold her arms out like that for nearly six hours straight, and this paled by comparison. She'd tried her best at the time, of course.

She had always aspired to the strength and skill embodied by Gerudo men. Males were a rarity amongst the People; a male child was born only about once every hundred years. They were blessings from above; demigods in their own right. Everyone was rightfully proud to serve under an alpha male; for Rougii it was even more of an honour as she was directly descended from Lord Arado himself. This parentage didn't afford her any special privileges in its own right, but the thought of being a blood relation had certainly inspired her to train harder, push further and bleed more. With any luck (not that luck had anything to do with it) one day she would be the second-most respected Gerudo warrior, the right hand of Lord Arado. Right now that honour belonged to Lamoora, a woman twice Rougii's age and without the wits. It couldn't be too hard to replace her, surely.

Flights of fancy aside… another man decked in armour emerged through the door. As he did, the others deliberately took the opportunity to back further away from Rougii. Stripes on his shoulder plates indicated that he was superior to the other soldiers. Attached to his belt was a sword in its scabbard, a weapon much more useful than the spears looked. He surveyed Rougii with an expression on his face that went slowly from incredulity to worry.

"I am Captain Gergoff, commanding officer at this outpost," he declared. "Name yourself!"

"I am Rougii of the People," she said, slowly and carefully.

"You're a Gerudo?" Captain Gergoff said, silently shaking his head as if hoping that it was all just some big misunderstanding.

"Yes," said Rougii. "I must deliver a message to your King."

"Oh, no," said Gergoff, crossing his arms. "No Gerudo's making a border crossing, alive or dead."

Rougii managed a half-smile. "I know," she said. "You will pass this message on for me."

"And if we don't?" said Gergoff.

"You will. It's important." Rougii glanced at the building thoughtfully. "We will talk inside."

She took a step forward, and instantly the three subordinate soldiers had their spears raised defensively. There was still so much distance between them that it would have been laughable if the situation wasn't so serious.

"You're not getting any closer than this," said Gergoff. "I'm not an idiot. I know you Gerudos… if I let you too close you'll kill us all and raze the building to the ground."

"I don't want to kill you," said Rougii. That was true. "I am unarmed." That was less true, but they wouldn't be able to tell that without thoroughly examining her.

"Why can't you deliver your message out here, then?" said Gergoff.

Rougii blinked. "It's dark out here."

The army captain stared hard at her for a few long seconds, his face belying some internal struggle. Then, he blinked and nodded. "All right," he said. "Walk over here. Slowly. Now, let me warn you – there are more soldiers inside. We're armed to the teeth. So try any funny business… and we won't hesitate to kill you."

"I understand," said Rougii.

She let her arms drop to her side, and started walking towards the building. As she neared them, Gergoff raised a hand, signalling for her to stop.

"Wait," he said, hands sliding to the sword on his belt. He nodded at one of his subordinates, the one who had been doing the talking before. "You! Make sure everyone's in a defensive position!" That soldier nodded and dashed inside, and Gergoff glanced at the remaining soldier. "Check her," he ordered. "Make sure she's unarmed."

The man nodded and walked towards Rougii, stopping just out of arm reach like he was afraid that she'd leap up and bite him. He circled Rougii, looking at her from every side with a mixture of fear and duty and perhaps even a hint of lust. She kept her eyes fixed on Gergoff, who stared back with forced calm.

"I don't see anything," the soldier said after about a minute of this. "Can't be anything hidden under her clothes. She's unarmed." The moment he said this he took a step back from her.

"Wait, you moron," said Captain Gergoff sharply. "The bag. Check what's in her bag."

Frozen on the spot, the soldier looked at his commanding officer as if he had just been asked to stick his head into a lion's mouth. He worked his jaw a couple of times, finally managing one word: "But…"

"Freyson, if you don't go and check the Gerudo for concealed weapons right now I will have you discharged," snapped the captain. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." The soldier took a step towards her.

Rougii crossed her arms and stared the man straight in the eye. "Don't touch me," she said bluntly.

His immediate response was to clutch his spear even tighter, angling it vaguely in her direction.

"Was that a _threat_?" said Captain Gergoff from behind him.

_You found _that_ aggressive?_, thought Rougii incredulously. Granted, relations had always been uneasy between Hylian and Gerudo, and certainly they were at war, but these people were treating her like some sort of deadly psychopath. This, she reminded herself, was one of the reasons why peace with Hyrule would never be an option for her people. Years of ignorance, pride and paranoia on the Hylians' part had ensured that.

Anyway, at this rate the exchange was bound to turn violent very quickly, which wasn't in Rougii's interest when the only weapon she had was the dagger concealed beneath her leggings, tiny and useless.

"If you lay a hand on me," she said, "we will start killing prisoners." That was a lie; today her safety was entirely her responsibility, but they didn't need to know that.

"Prisoners?" said Gergoff sharply.

Rougii smiled victoriously. "Let's go inside."

The captain glared at her for a few long seconds. Then, defeated, he nodded. "All right. But remember, we outnumber you. So much as think about hurting us and we'll kill you…" – he snapped his fingers – "…just like that. Understand?"

"Yes… sir," said Rougii. She straightened the satchel strap and walked towards him. When she reached him, he was standing right in the doorway, blocking her. With the air of authority, he deliberately turned his back on her and led her inside.

'Inside' was littered with chairs, spears and empty bottles. Torches placed dangerously close to the wooden-looking walls were buried in the sand – apparently the military hadn't even gone to the effort of providing itself a solid floor – and a doorway which was more like a gap in the wall led to a collection of bunk beds. The air smelt so strongly of alcohol it was a wonder that the building hadn't just caught fire of its own accord. Standing here, Rougii could just picture this small band of soldiers whiling the hours away, wasting their lives waiting for an attack that they could never hope to fend off.

There were eight soldiers as far as she could see, including the captain. Aside from their leader they were all doing the frightened-spear-waving thing. It was worrying, but there was still a chance that this exchange could end peacefully and so she pressed on.

She walked up to the large table in the centre of the room, swept the playing cards and Rupees from it with her forearm, and sat on it, facing the army captain.

Gergoff was looking at her with nervousness disguised as distaste. "All right, here you are. Who are the prisoners? Is that your message?"

Rougii dropped the satchel onto the table beside her. "Our wise lord, Arado Dragmire of the People, has sent me to…"

"Get to the damn point already," muttered a soldier (naturally, the one farthest from her).

"We took prisoners," said Rougii, maintaining steady contact. "After the battle a week ago."

"You never take prisoners," said Gergoff, returning the stare quietly.

"Not usually," said Rougii, letting herself slip into a recital of her blood father's message. "Lord Arado knew that your little royal prince was leading those hundreds of doomed soldiers. As a gesture of… _kindness_ towards your leader, he instructed our warriors to avoid killing people of higher rank. In total four of your army survived unslain. One of them died…"

"You filthy murderers," muttered someone to her left.

"…died trying to escape," continued Rougii. She let a smile slip onto her lips, the same one Arado had made when he had given her the message. "A true Hylian hero. You'll make statues in his honour, naturally…"

She could feel the soldiers' glares upon her. One of them angled his spear forward but Gergoff held up a warning hand.

"Get to the point or I will let my men kill you," he said to her, his face remaining admirably passive.

"Three prisoners," said Rougii. "Two battalion commanders. One prince. Better?"

Captain Gergoff stared hard at her for a few seconds, digesting this information. Then he laughed mirthlessly.

"Of course," he said, a grimace forming on his face. "You have our prince and now we must let you through the border straight into our Goddess-given kingdom." His tone turned sour. "Oh, but wait – you won't show your prisoners to us, right? Too dangerous… wouldn't want them to get rescued. I'll just have to take your _word_ for it and pass it on to my superiors, eh?"

"Hear!" shouted the three soldiers who weren't scared to death.

"You're right," said Rougii, "Lord Arado isn't about to stick the royal brat in front of your noses. But…" She fished into the satchel by her side and procured a small ruby brooch in which a distinctive shape was carved. "You'll find this has your king's seal on it. That should be proof enough."

Gergoff shook his head. "Even if it's the real article, all that proves is that you took a ring from the body of our beloved prince. Nothing else."

"That's for your king to decide, isn't it?" said Rougii, tossing the brooch to Captain Gergoff. He made no move to catch it, a defiant expression on his face, and it bounced off his chest and onto the sandy ground, where it settled quietly.

The captain looked unconvinced, but he seemed to acknowledge that he didn't have any leverage. "Fine, woman. This will go to the King. But I assure you, he will hardly take a single piece of jewellery as proof that his son survived the massacre."

"I'm sure you're right," said Rougii. "Take this as well. I'm sure your king will recognise this." She reached into the satchel and pulled out a small bundle of tightly-wrapped fabric, patterned with small brown stains.

"What is that?" said Gergoff immediately, but she knew he knew. It was there in his face.

"Can't you guess?" she teased, momentarily forgetting all about the spears levelled at her.

No response aside from even icier glares than before. She unwrapped the cloth fold by fold, wincing slightly as she neared the centre where the blood was thickest.

"With any luck…" she began. She removed the last fold and held out, for all of them to see, a bloody disembodied hand. On the fourth finger was a golden ring carrying the royal seal. The blood had clotted, and so, grotesquely, the hand retained a little of its colour.

The soldiers around her stiffened, staring at the severed appendage.

"Goddesses," whispered Gergoff, taking an involuntary step forward.

She pressed a finger against the palm, and nodded with grim satisfaction. Proof – of the grisly, unfriendly kind – but proof nonetheless. They would definitely pass this message along.

"That's… but… Din's mercy…" mumbled Captain Gergoff.

"It's still warm," said Rougii, smiling.

* * *

Prince Verdin Hyrule was sitting in a darkened, torch-lit cell in Goddesses-knew-where. He was staring at the spot where his right hand had been just a few hours ago. The pain was incredible, just as much now as it had been when they'd cut it off, and the leather strap that the Gerudos had tied roughly around his forearm to stop the bleeding was torturous in its own right. 

Across from him, slumped against the walls of the cell were two commanders, all that remained of the massive army which had followed him into battle.

One of them (brown-haired and tattered armour and Verdin just couldn't remember his name any more) shifted and muttered something under his breath.

"What did you say?" said Verdin weakly, glad of a distraction from his injury.

"I said we're pitiful," said the commander with tattered armour tiredly, slumping back against the stone-and-clay walls of their small prison. "Hyrule's finest."

Verdin laughed despite himself. "Yes, what a bloody mess. The Goddesses aren't smiling upon us."

They had watched the previous evening, restrained and sleep-deprived, as several Gerudo women planted iron bars and reinforcements around what once must have been a store room. Now, that wall of bars separated them from an empty, darkened corridor where a solitary torch flickered on the wall.

"There aren't any guards," Verdin observed. "We're alone."

"Yeah, but what good is that?" said the other man, black-haired and diminutive. "We're unarmed, beaten, trapped in the middle of nowhere. Even if we broke out of this cell, _and_ got through this hive of Gerudos, where would we go? We're as good as dead."

Verdin shook his head, shoving those words of doubt out of his mind. "We'll be rescued. Once he knows we've been captured my father will send soldiers from every corner of the kingdom to get me out of here. Us out of here."

The black-haired commander smiled. "I hope you're right, Prince."

"Hope's all we have," said the commander with tattered armour. "I wonder why they even…" He stopped, eyes widening.

Footsteps resounded down the corridor. Several people were walking leisurely towards the cell. The three prisoners exchanged glances and then stared out through the bars looking for the smallest sign of movement.

"…a wise decision indeed, milord," spoke the voice of a Gerudo woman, a thick accent colouring her vowels. "That will be a great victory for the People."

"Of course you say that," said a man's voice, which could only belong to the leader of the Gerudos. "But for good reason; I have rarely been wrong. Isn't that true, Lamoora?"

Another woman's voice, sharper and nastier-sounding: "Milord… I am hardly qualified to judge the fruits of your wisdom."

The Gerudo warlord laughed. "Lamoora, Lamoora… so afraid of having to think more than a step ahead… you're lucky that you have such talents elsewhere."

"Yes, milord," muttered 'Lamoora' docilely as the five Gerudos came into view on the other side of the bars.

There were four Gerudo women, all wearing the same sort of loose leggings and short well-woven tops. Three of them had their clothing dyed purple, while those worn by the woman at the front were a bright white. All of them had pairs of curved swords sheathed against their bare backs, and they regarded them so casually that it was a whole brand of passive intimidation in itself. The Gerudo lord was olive-skinned and red-haired like his female brethren, wearing folds upon folds of brown leather in what appeared to be a massive construction of organic armour. It looked like it weighed a horse but that wasn't evident by the natural, smug way he walked.

Lord Arado Dragmire turned his head in Verdin's direction and smiled. Verdin felt a chill run down his spine and for a moment he couldn't help but recall–

_The Gerudo lord and the woman in white burst into the cell, trailed by two other Gerudo warriors in guard robes. Verdin and the two commanders he was trapped with sprung to their feet._

_"Block the door," said Lord Arado, waving a hand behind him at the two guardwomen, and they fell into position, cutting the prisoners off from the open door of the cell._

_"What are you doing?" the black-haired commander half-shouted at him. "Why are you taking prisoners? You never…"_

_"Lamoora," said Arado, and the woman in white robes whom that name belonged to nodded and walked over to the commander._

_"You don't scare me," said the commander defiantly. "I demand you release us right now, or…"_

_Lamoora twisted and slammed the blade of her right foot into his stomach. The black-haired commander yelled at the moment of impact and fell back to the ground, heaving._

_"Us? Release the prisoners?" scoffed Arado, looking between all three of the Hylians. "This is war. Never before have we had to spare the life of filth like you…"_

_"I'd rather die than be your prisoner…" began the commander in the tattered armour._

_"I wasn't talking to you," said Arado, making a signal with his hand, and Lamoora crossed over and shoved the man to the ground._

_"Do you have any idea who we are?" said Verdin, clenching his fists. "Who _I_ am?"_

_"Yes, Prince, I know exactly who you are," said Arado with a wide smile on his face. "Are you sure _you_ do?"_

_"What in hell are you talking about?" said Verdin._

_"I mean that you're going to be of great use to me," said Arado. "One way or another, you're going to help us take your kingdom. And I'm sure you'd prefer to do it without all the pain…"_

_"So you're going to torture me?" said Verdin._

_"First things first," said Arado._

_He reached behind his back and slid out a single sword, nearly shoulder-height and impossibly heavy in appearance. Whatever metal it was made of it was jet-black in colour, though around its edges it appeared torchlight red._

_Verdin and his fellow prisoners exchanged confused looks._

_"What are you doing?" said Verdin._

_"Hold out your sword hand," said Arado._

_"What?" said Verdin._

_"I'm about to cut off your right hand as a message to your father," said Arado. "Hold it out."_

_"You've got to be joking," said Verdin, taking a step away._

_"Lamoora, hold out his hand," said Arado._

_It took Verdin a split second to realise what Arado was saying, and then he started to twist around. The evil-looking woman who was Arado's second-in-command was already behind him, shooting out a hand to grab his wrist but he twisted away. Her eyes narrowed and one hand moved for her swords._

I'm going to die now_, Verdin thought, panicked, and his gut told him to fight back, to do whatever necessary to scrape a few more seconds of being alive. He swung a fist at her face–_

_–and she batted it to the side with one hand, right before it hit her, and grabbed it painfully with the other and he tried to pull away and she slid her elbow under the elbow of his exposed outstretched arm and he didn't see what happened but a moment later they were both on their knees and his face was pressed into the stone floor of the cell and his right arm was contorted out to the side and he could pull it free and her grip was vicelike and he looked up and the grinning face of Arado looked back at him and he couldn't help but stare at the sword which Arado know gripped in both hands and then Arado laughed and the sword came crashing down in all its jet-black unholy splendour and he felt the air rushing at his arm before it hit–_

_–and then Lamoora was still holding his hand but nothing else; the Gerudo warlord had made a single clean cut just missing her hand but severing Verdin's. It took him half a second to register this and then the pain hit him like a tidal wave and he fell to the ground, screaming. And the other prisoners were yelling furiously but nobody was doing anything, and Arado slid his sword back into its sheath._

_"Lamoora, stop the bleeding," said Arado, snatching the hand – Verdin's hand – from her. "I'll give this to the girl. The one you said was my eldest."_

_"Rougii?" said Lamoora, pulling a leather strip and a pair of needles out of nowhere. She started doing something to Verdin's arm but he couldn't tell what; the pain was in the way and everything was getting hazy._

_"Yes, her," said Arado. "With any luck, his hand will still be warm by the time the girl gets to the border."_

_Lamoora nodded but now she was talking to Verdin again. "This will slow the bleeding until it clots," she was saying. "You won't be able to remove it without a knife, but you're welcome to try. You'll probably find some swelling…"_

_Everything was going red…_

Arado and Lamoora and the three other women stood outside the cell. Arado procured a key from within his thick leather armour and unlocked it, letting the door swing open silently.

"It's a very sturdy prison to have been built so quickly," he remarked.

"A testament to Gerudo ingenuity," murmured Lamoora subserviently.

"Yes, yes," said Arado, looking through her. His eyes snapped towards Verdin. "How's the hand?" he said, and there was a malicious grin on his face.

"You bastard," said Verdin weakly, but he knew better than to stand up.

"Oh, forgive my poor manners," said Arado, putting a hand to his face in mock apology. "I meant to ask, how is your hand, _Prince_?"

Verdin looked away, his mouth firmly shut.

"Answer me," said Arado warningly.

"Go to hell," said Verdin, staring at a crack in the stone floor.

For a moment there was a nasty silence in which he could feel the Gerudo lord's eyes burning into his head. It took all his effort not to look up.

"Well," said Arado after what felt like an eternity, "let's go."

"Where am I going?" said Verdin. There was no response, and after a few seconds he conceded and looked up into his captor's eyes.

"_You_," said Arado, "are going nowhere. You are the crown prince of Hyrule, and we're giving you special treatment, something I'm sure you're used to. You're going to stay in this room, and tell us everything we want to know, or rot to death, maybe both."

Verdin glared back defiantly, and Arado continued:

"Your two friends here, these men who were foolish enough to follow you into battle… they, on the other hand, aren't _special_.They will be treated to something different entirely."

As he spoke, the Gerudo women moved silently into the cells, grabbing the two commanders roughly. They put up a little struggle, but within seconds they had realised it was useless to resist these impossibly fast and strong Gerudos.

"You can't do that!" said Verdin, rising to his feet.

"Oh, I think we can," said Arado contemptuously. "They're not worth keeping around."

"My Prince!" shouted one of commanders, the black-haired one who was a little shorter than Verdin. "Don't let them get anything from you! Protect our great kingdom!"

"No!" said Verdin. "I mean, yes, I won't, but they can't kill you! It's unfair; Hyrule never kills its prisoners!"

"That's because you never manage to take prisoners," sneered Arado, as the Gerudo women began to drag the commanders out of the cell.

Verdin was scared and he had absolutely no idea what to do and so he began to whisper under his breath: "Farore, Din, Nayru… Goddesses, please, don't let these men die."

"Prince!" shouted the other commander, the brown-haired one with the tattered armour, and one of the Gerudo women tried forcing her hand over his moth to quiet him. "When you get out, tell His Majesty I'm proud to have served this country! Always was, always will be!"

"I… I don't even know your name," said Verdin, staring back blankly.

The man laughed; first hoarsely, then bitterly, and then he held nothing back and laughed as if it were the best joke in the world. He was still laughing as they disappeared out of sight.

Verdin stared through the bars at the empty corridor. As the footsteps receded, he strained his ears as the laughing faded. Just as they left earshot, he thought he heard the commander shout back, "Does it matter?"

But it was probably his imagination.

With a jolt, he realised that Arado was still standing in the cell in front of him.

"Prince," Arado said.

"What do you want?" said Verdin.

"A lot of things," said Arado wistfully. He moved towards the door of the cell. "We can talk about this in the morning."

"What time is it?" said Verdin.

Arado raised his eyebrows at the question. "Evening," he said.

He stepped out of the cell, locking the door behind him.

"Sleep well, prince of Hyrule," he said, walking away.

Left in the dark with his thoughts and the ghosts of the dead, Verdin knew that sleep wouldn't be coming any time soon.

* * *

"It's still warm," said Rougii, laying the severed hand on the table. "Go ahead and check. He's very much alive." 

"Goddesses…" whispered Captain Gergoff, staring at the hand. Then he swung his eyes up to stare down Rougii. "You! You cut off his hand… the King will see that your lord and his harem pay for this in _blood_."

"I'm just the messenger," said Rougii, standing up and holding her hands out.

"Kill the bitch," said Gergoff viciously, but the eight spear-armed men surrounding Rougii needed no orders to do that. They all stalked towards her, the circle closing in, and their faces glared with hatred.

"That's unfair!" said Rougii half-heartedly, reaching for her concealed dagger, which she knew wouldn't be any help at all. "This wasn't my doing, sir Captain."

He didn't respond and so she pulled out the dagger, waving it in front of her threateningly. Perhaps half a minute ago it might have made them pause but they ignored it under their bloodlust and the obvious fact that their spears were ten times as long as her blade.

Two of them suddenly shouted and charged into the middle of the circle, spears angled forward and she moved, years of training possessing her body and unconsciously directing her actions. She sprung to the side, so that one of them missed and deflected the spear of the other one with the painfully short blade of her knife.

The movement had disrupted the circle and she made to slip out through the gap. One of the soldiers was smart enough to stick his spear in the way and instead she grabbed his arms and spun around, wrenching the spear out of his grip. She didn't stop to pick it up but instead grabbed him in a chokehold with her knife against his throat and started backing away towards the door.

"Do anything and I'll snap his neck," she said, making each step carefully.

"Liar," said Gergoff, loathing evident in his every syllable as she neared the outside world. As he spoke, his soldiers fanned out around her, trying to find a way through the human shield. "You'll kill him anyway."

"I'm not like you," said Rougii, and as she stepped outside she felt a blessed cool desert wind. She shoved the soldier in her arms forward, sending him stumbling into the other men who scattered around him. She didn't stop to watch; instead, she was running the moment her hands were free; running out into the safety of the desert.

"You'll pay for this!" Gergoff shouted after her.

Behind her there were yells and she thought she heard the thud of a spear being thrown into the sand behind her. She didn't look back, though. No need to dwell on failures.

* * *

**A/N:** The original hope here was to show that there existed 'good' and 'evil' on both sides of the battle front, but I think this ended up casting the Hylians in a better light. (Oh, well…) I'm really starting to like Rougii. 

Now, as far as gore and profanity goes – this is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. There won't be very many chapters with violent drunken uneducated soldiers running around hurling lustful obscenities at Gerudo women as someone-or-other gets tortured.

Please review! A little ego-stroking never hurt anyone, and it might actually help me pick up my game.


	5. Forgettable Stories

**_Evil's Bane_**

* * *

**Forgettable Stories**

* * *

_Two days later_

The King of Hyrule stood upon a balcony which overlooked the great courtyard at the front of the royal castle. Before him stood a crowd of people comprising the great populace of Hyrule, from high-ranking bureaucrats and wealthy merchants, to everyday tradesmen and farmers. And each and every one of them were listening intently as he orated, hanging on his every word. If he was slowing with age, he certainly wasn't showing it now, not up there on that balcony where he was ruler of the world.

"People of Hyrule," he intoned gravely, "hard-working citizens of this beautiful, prosperous land, I stand before you today not as a monarch, but as a man of flesh and blood like any other…"

Elwin heard the words and let them wash over him without listening; only a few hours ago had he read through the whole thing as His Majesty himself presented it to his closest advisors. It was indisputable that the King had always been a magnificent speechwriter, just as it was undeniable that Elwin was proud to be in his small circle of trusted advisors.

Elwin's father's eldest brother was emperor of Reycarte, a distant state where the stark line between wealth and poverty could practically be drawn on a map. When he was nine he had come to Hyrule with his father who was on some vague, ill-defined diplomatic mission. His father had spent years working with the current King of Hyrule, apparently trying to create a channel of trade between the two nations, but such a clear objective didn't explain how his father had gradually become moody and introverted. When Elwin was twenty-one, his father died of a mysterious illness, leaving him alone in the Hylian royal court to fend for himself.

Since then he had spent close to fifteen years in this foreign land, not as a diplomat since his ties to his homeland were so weak (and the diplomatic relation between Reycarte and Hyrule appeared to have been brought to a halt). Instead he went to the King and was given work in the royal Treasury keeping track of the costs of clothing for soldiers in the army. It was, no doubt, a mundane task at first, adding totals and presenting them to the royal treasurer or a deputy, month in, month out. And then one day in talking to the merchants who supplied the garments he realised that in his position he could bargain with the merchants, and by token the weavers and tailors, and get slightly inferior products for a slightly smaller cost. And once he multiplied that slight saving by the rate at which the Hylian army enlisted, he was suddenly awash in Rupees which nobody else ever missed.

What to do with the money presented a slightly different problem – clearly, some level of indulgence was acceptable, but he had enough common sense not to invest in palatial estates, extravagant clothing, nightly orgies and monuments to his own name. Instead he found himself slightly better housing closer to the castle gates and kept the money safe for whenever he needed it. Elwin spent about eight years in the treasury before strategically letting a small amount of that money slip back into the system, where he used it to catalyse a change in supplier and an ambitious upgrade to the soldiers' armour. Somebody noticed, and within a few months' time he was the assistant to the King's economic advisor.

For a while he enjoyed his new position: after all, having even greater access to the royal money meant more opportunities to siphon gold out from the cracks. Then he decided that he could do better. Not long afterwards, the advisor he served under was fired after certain scandalous accusations made by a cook (who Elwin later paid several thousand Rupees for his trouble). Elwin took his place.

From the balcony the King continued to speak. "…all died fighting valiantly for their king and country. In their sacrifice, they have shown us what it truly means to be Hylian…"

"…and _that_ we must never forget," muttered Elwin with mock passion, paraphrasing the next line of the King's speech.

He didn't really need to be standing here in this crowd. He already knew (as most of the royal court did) that that last push into the western desert had been tragically unsuccessful. He also knew just how deeply the King grieved for his son, surely lying among the countless other bodies out there in the sand. Really, Elwin could have been relaxing in his sizeable bedroom or misappropriating funds, but curiosity had gotten the better of him and now he was trawling through the crowd looking for a blue-blood in commoners' clothes.

He pushed through the crowd, just forceful enough to move quickly but otherwise avoiding making a nuisance of himself. Elwin never made enemies he didn't need.

It was difficult manoeuvring through the crowd, especially when there were soldiers and mages from the Royal Guard and the Peacekeeper's Guild wherever he looked, casting guarded looks at him as he brushed past.

He found her within a couple of minutes – the King's only daughter was blending almost perfectly into the crowd, with tasteful-but-inexpensive frayed clothes thrown on and mud methodically worked onto her hair and skin. The only reason he picked her out of the throng of people was the subtle increase in soldiers and mages in her immediate vicinity.

He worked his way around the guards and bystanders, all gazing up open-mouthed at the King on the balcony, and slid up next to the girl, all the while ignoring the burning eyes of her guards (at least he assumed that was why they were surrounding her).

"I'm impressed," he said, loudly enough for her to hear. "However you did it, I'm very impressed."

Princess Zelda glanced at him, smiled and returned her gaze back to the balcony where her father stood orating. "I'm sorry," she said with a tongue-in-cheek smile, "I'm only a fruit seller. You must have me confused with someone else."

Elwin suppressed a twinge of annoyance and instead chuckled softly. "You don't need to be down here. You already know what he's going to say."

"I wanted to see what everyone else felt," she replied, nodding her head to indicate the crowd at large. "To understand the effect that this all has on real people."

Elwin nodded. "As I was about to say, his Majesty doesn't usually deliver speeches that…"

"I was under the impression that he gave speeches all the time," said the girl, eyebrows raised. She raised two fingers and waved them through the air: it must have been a signal because the mages standing nearby visibly relaxed.

"Not for bad news like this," he said. "Why, after the messenger arrived with news of the tragedy in the desert he was telling his advisors that he would just let his heralds and representatives spread the news."

"Really," said Zelda, with just enough inflection in her voice to indicate that she was actually listening.

"Then you spent a few hours alone with him and suddenly he has a huge change of heart," continued Elwin. "The connection seems fairly obvious."

"Now that you mention it, I suppose there is some truth to it," she said, a small but proud smirk creeping onto her face. "And keep your voice down."

"How did you…" began Elwin, but she raised a warning hand.

"Shh," said the princess quickly, and she reached out with one hand, placing her index finger directly in between them. Elwin stared at it, momentarily perplexed, and then he gingerly reached out with a finger of his own and let it touch hers…

…and then there was total silence. The King was still speaking and the crowd was still sobbing and cheering – Elwin could still feel the air move with the noise – but he heard nothing, nothing at all.

"Nice spell," he said despite himself.

"I said, be quiet," said Zelda in the softest of whispers. "Not everybody here has turned up to discuss court gossip." Sensing his hesitation, she added, "Go on…"

Elwin lowered his voice, barely letting it rise above his breath. "How did you convince His Majesty to deliver the speech?"

"That's all?" said Zelda, as if she'd been expecting a more taxing question. Her gaze was still fixed on her father high above. "Oh, I just asked him politely. It's only proper especially since my own brother was in that army."

He laughed uncertainly. "None of us would dare." He paused and added, "'Us' being his court advisors. Or the government officials."

She shrugged – something fairly difficult to do without breaking the physical contact between their hands. "Perhaps _that_ is because none of you are the King's daughter," she said.

"Maybe so," he said, unsure if she was joking. "A daughter's request… was that _really_ all there was to it?"

"Trying to weasel out my secrets?" she said with a teasing smile. "Hungry for a bit more… influence with my father?"

Elwin laughed and shook his head, though the princess was just about right. Not too much of a surprise, though; from all accounts she was a smart young woman, somewhat in her father's image. Never mind; there was more than one way to play this game.

_Time to change the subject_, decided Elwin. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," he said.

"Elwin, isn't it?" said Zelda, and she finally turned her head and fixed her full attention upon him. "You used to help keep up the Treasury, and now you're one of my father's advisors."

"I'm surprised you remembered that," said Elwin, which was true.

Zelda laughed. "I always paid more attention to my father's court than my brother ever did. Does," she added with a perplexed look on her face. "Ever does." She shook it off. "I'm not really sure what to believe about Verdin being dead. I'm not sure what I want to believe."

He took this as a personal confidence and nodded solemnly. "Death is always confusing for us mortals, Princess."

"You remembered my name?" whispered Zelda in mock surprise, and this time Elwin laughed genuinely, drawing strange looks from a few people standing nearby. He'd almost forgotten that there was an enchantment on them right now.

"Princess…" he began, dropping back into a quiet murmur.

"Please, call me Zelda," said Zelda.

"Well, only if you insist," said Elwin, feigning discomfort. "Zelda, are you at all interested in castle politics?"

"Elaborate." She was interested.

"Well, it seems to me that between the two of us, we're in a very interesting position," said Elwin. "As one of his Majesty's close advisors, I believe I am in an excellent position to assist him in making rational, calculated decisions – the sort that affect Hyrule in its trivial, day-to-day affairs…"

"You're not seriously suggesting…" said Zelda scornfully.

"…and clearly you're able to guide – and have guided – the King in making certain personal, _emotional_ decisions…" Elwin paused, wondering how best to phrase the next part. "Between us, I believe we could assist the King, your father, in his all-important governing role – not constantly, all the time; just making sure that his firm leadership never strays… off-course…"

Zelda was looking at him with a mixture of bemusement and admiration. "Even if what you're suggesting was possible, that would be akin to doing Father's duty for him…"

Elwin nodded. "With Hyrule's best interests at heart, of course," he said, realising his mistake a split-second later.

She stiffened. "You're suggesting that my father doesn't have the kingdom's best interests at heart?"

"Of course not!" said Elwin quickly. "All I meant was that… surely you've noticed that over the last few years, his Majesty has begun to… pardon my bluntness… _slow_?"

She paused, considering. "It _is_ true that his personality has changed markedly," she said after a few seconds' thought. She laughed reflectively, as if dredging up a not-totally-pleasant memory. "In fact, just the other day…"

"Yes?" said Elwin instantly.

Zelda blinked. "Oh, nothing important," she said. He must have seemed too eager.

"Well, you see my point," he said, falling back into his earlier rhythm. "His Majesty is still sharp as a dagger, but in those occasional moments where his judgement lapses, wouldn't it be useful for us to be there as… safeguards?"

"Your proposition is an interesting one," said Zelda, "but I really don't think that I can accept it, not rationally."

"Rationally?" said Elwin.

"You keep speaking of a partnership as if we are both dependent upon each other," she said with a shrug, "and I really don't see how that works since I'm not usually involved in my father's affairs. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that you're hoping to gain my trust so that you can use me as ammunition in whatever games you and my father and the advisors play."

"You insult me," he said solemnly.

"Not at all," said Zelda. "If I were in your position, I'm sure I would do the same."

Elwin exhaled slowly. "Even if what you say is true, surely it is in your best interests to become more thoroughly acquainted with your Father's monarchical duties, especially if you are to become Queen…"

Zelda laughed but there was no humour left in her voice. "When and if I decide to take an interest in my father's business, I'm sure I'll be able to do it without you holding my hand."

"Well…"

"Also, I'm not going to be a queen because my brother is not _dead_," snapped Zelda, snatching her hand away from him.

The moment that happened, the connection between them broke and suddenly the spell of silence had vanished. Elwin winced momentarily as his hearing returned to normal and the sounds of the crowd re-emerged. People were yelling and cheering; clearly the King had reached the tail-end of his speech.

Sure enough, his Majesty was still delivering an impassioned monologue. "In their memory – we will keep Hyrule safe. In their memory – we will stand firm in the face of enemies without and within. In their memory – this proud land will, as it always has…"

Elwin glanced at where Zelda had been standing, considering making a last-ditch effort to change her mind. But that wasn't going to be – she was drifting off through the crowd, that quiet circle of bodyguards casually moving off in the same direction. Already she was fading from view as the crowd swayed around her cheering the king.

"A pity," he sighed, and went inside.

* * *

That morning Link packed a bag, borrowed a horse, and rode off into town by himself.

The decision had been made the previous evening, after he had come back inside after a tough afternoon's work (Talon stayed inside the house with his daughters, and it was understood that he would not be doing anything on the ranch that day). A meagre supper was prepared, again by Link since despite her protests to the contrary Malina wasn't in the right state of mind to be cooking, and after the two girls were fed Link and Talon sat across from each other at the kitchen table and ate in silence.

It was only afterwards, as they circled the empty farm at sunset checking on the animals, that they started talking, first in simple mundane questions and monosyllables, then, in short half-sentences that skimmed on the surface of but never really addressed the confusion and anxiety they both knew they were feeling. Finally they moved into a slow and painfully drawn-out talk that bordered on honest.

"They're going to be all right," Talon had said as they walked the perimeter of the farm. "I'm not a doctor by any means but Goddesses-willing, they're going to be all right."

Link didn't say anything; he just nodded and accepted it.

"I just don't understand…" Talon went on.

Link said neither did he, and they walked on for a while.

The night before that, the two of them had returned from town to find holes torn into the walls of the barn, and flames rising from the nearest paddock, steam rising as a strange design burnt into the grass. The fire was quickly doused, and only then did they venture into the barn. Inside, bright-red bolts of electricity danced across the struts of the walls, illuminating them in an eerie red glow. Splinters of wood from the barn walls had flown everywhere, sticking out from the walls and ground at jagged angles. The floor was littered with a handful of bodies – in the darkened light they found a few dead horses and cows, pooling blood on the floor, and both of Talon's daughters on the ground. Malina was huddled into a ball, whimpering, and when she looked up and recognised them there was a long cut across the side of a face where, she later said, a fragment of wood had sliced through as it ricocheted across the barn. At the time, though, shock had sealed her lips, and it seemed that Talon too was silent and father and daughter held each other close in mutual necessity. Then Link went to Nemia – she was unconscious, and though it was dark he could see clearly that something was wrong; the colour of her skin was uneven and her limbs were bent at impossible angles. He called for Talon and the man came lumbering after him, unable to comprehend what was going on, much less that it wasn't some twisted dream brought on by a long day's work. He saw; he didn't believe; and so he simply regarded her not as his eldest daughter but some sick, imaginary rendition of her. Acceptance would come later.

Somehow the four of them had found themselves outside the barn soon after, and then after that inside, gates shut and doors locked for that extra illusion of safety. Nemia was breathing; Malina had started speaking hysterically, telling them how scared she was and apologising and babbling incoherent nonsense about a grey-skinned jester. Talon and Link had sat in silence, the former sculling down a heavy-smelling drink. The thought that something so grotesque; so _inhuman_; could happen at home had still been a foreign one.

Talon and Link continued to pace the exterior of the farm, the warmth-less sunset casting long shadows before them.

"I spent all day with them," Talon said, breaking the silence yet again.

Link grunted, still unable to think of anything to say that wouldn't ring hollow.

Talon nodded; deep down he understood. "Malina is fine. They're just cuts… see 'em all the time. Nemia… I don't know what happened."

Link had seen Nemia in the daylight. Her skin had been magically seared, blackening patches across her face and body that could have passed for bruises except a hundred times more sensitive to pain. Her legs were a twisted mess – bones still intact yet broken in some fundamental way that left them hanging out in all directions, making it impossible for her to sit let alone stand. The poor girl was bedridden.

"Goddesses…" he had whispered at the time, but what Goddesses would have let this happen?

"Link," Nemia had said; her voice quiet since she hadn't eaten since forever. "Close the door… please," she added, and they exchanged ghosts of smiles.

He closed the door.

"Don't let Dad know," she said the moment it was shut, "he wouldn't understand. Maybe Mum would've. I don't know."

"What are you…?"

"Last night," she said. "Malina and I were in the barn talking. Then there was… I don't know what to call him. He looked like a jester, one of those travelling performers or something… but he didn't look human, the colours were all wrong."

"That's what she was muttering about?" said Link.

Nemia blinked. "The colours were all wrong. And there was this red, red… I don't know, _glow_ to him… and they way he spoke it was like he was having _fun_ coming into the barn and scaring us like that… whatever he is, he frightens me sometimes."

"Listen, Nemia…"

"No, you listen, Link," said Nemia, straining to lift her head up. "It's important. Whatever you want to ask me, it doesn't matter, I feel fine, I'll be okay – look, this jester creature said it was looking for the one who did magic. Looking for _me_."

He shook his head; still clinging to that phase of denial where it was all just some unfortunate coincidence. "Nemia, why would he be…" he said.

"He was," said Nemia. "Please, trust me, he was."

"Didn't you run?" said Link.

"No," said Nemia. "We were too scared. We just stayed rooted to the spot and he just kept talking. Could you…?"

Link's gaze followed her motioning hand to a cup half-filled with water sitting on a crate near the bed. He passed it to her, and she pulled herself up to drink it. Her hands were free of magical burns, but they still trembled as she brought the drink to her mouth.

"Why was this man looking for _you_?" said Link, staring right through her. "It's just a farm."

Nemia said, "Because I know magic. He said it was because I know magic."

A brief silence, in which she waited for him to digest this information.

"While he was doing this…" she held up her scarred arms, "to me, he was whispering. Not to me… well, yes, to me, but half the time it sounded like he was talking to himself… he just kept saying that it was my fault, that I shouldn't have been learning to do magic…"

Link nodded without meaning it. "I still don't…"

Her eyes were alive now. "It's not just me, don't you understand? I'm not the first, I'm not going to be the last. He's probably going around the kingdom, doing this to everyone. I don't know why but this jester is trying to stop people, young people like us, from using magic."

Link felt a tugging feeling in his gut… déjà vu. He tried to recall what this was reminding him of, but as he tried he felt the thought slipping away from him. Frustrated, he closed his eyes and tried to drag it back to the front of his mind, but to no avail. Never mind. It probably wasn't anything important.

Aloud, he said: "But we'd have heard if this person had hurt other people before… wouldn't the army have done something about it?"

"Maybe," said Nemia, setting her empty cup down sideways on the mattress, where it threatened to roll off. "Hyrule is great in size. Maybe you're right but the news just hasn't reached us yet."

"Maybe," said Link. He took the cup from the bed and set it down on the floor. "I hope they find him. He deserves…"

"Link," she said, cutting him off, "what if the authorities don't know? Maybe nobody else has seen what he looks like."

"They'd know," said Link; though he had never really seen them firsthand he had faith in the powers-that-be of Hyrule. "They'd have to know. Maybe the royal army is trying to catch him this very moment. If…"

Nemia made a noise that sounded halfway between a derisive laugh and a snort (for the briefest of moments Talon's reclusive eldest daughter looked exactly like her father). "Please. We don't know that. If the King knew then they'd have stopped Salencia already."

"Sal…?"

"That was his name," said Nemia. She frowned. "Funny. He didn't tell us his name. He…" Blink. "Never mind. You have to go to town. Find someone from the army or the Peace guild. Even if I'm wrong and it's just me somebody needs to know that there's a madman roaming the country."

"But I can't go…" began Link.

"Yes, you can," said Nemia. "Dad was running this farm by himself for ages before he had you around to pick up the slack. Malina has a couple of scratches on her face, that's all; you being around isn't going to get her better any faster. And I think I've been through the worst already. I promise I won't turn into a weeping mess during the couple of days you're gone for."

Link nodded… she was right, but this didn't exactly do anything for his enthusiasm about the idea. What was he supposed to do, run into Castle Town and start shouting to anyone who'd listen about an evil jester that no, he hadn't seen himself? It wasn't going to work…

"Look," said Nemia, as if reading his mind, "just go into town and find the Peacekeeping Guild. They're supposed to have some of the best magic-users in the kingdom. If anyone knows what's going on or what to do, it'd be them."

That wouldn't be too hard… Link nodded. "Okay," he said, "if you think I should, I'll go to town and do that."

Nemia smiled. "I knew you'd come through for me," she said warmly. "Tell my dad you're going… just not what the jester said, if I know him he'll take it very personally, even more than now. Wouldn't want him running off trying to find some crazy mage… that's just not a job for one man."

Link managed a small laugh.

And so when he and Talon walked around the farm Link's mind was already set; all he had left was to convince the farmer. As it turned out, Talon acquiesced readily.

"You want to find help?" he'd said. "I reckon that's a great idea. See if you can find someone who knows what to do about Nemia's… who can fix her up."

Link agreed.

"If you're going to be by yourself in town you'll need somewhere to stay," Talon went on. "I'll fix you up with some money later, okay?"

And so it was settled; the boy would go out into town and find help, and the farm would go on without him for the next few days. That night he slept restlessly, and didn't wake until a good hour after sunrise. He was apprehensive despite Nemia's assurances, and when he pecked her on the cheek before he left his mind was about as distanced as it could possibly be from adolescent obsessions. Granted, it was barely more than delivering a message to the right people, but it didn't feel like that. In his mind, this was the most important thing he'd ever done.

That morning Link packed a bag, borrowed a horse, and rode off into town by himself.

* * *

**A/N:** Another really slow chapter from my perspective. I don't know about you but for me the second section really dragged (and if it wasn't kind of necessary to the arc I would so have axed it). On the other hand I was fairly happy with how the latest character-introduction turned out, but that's opinion as well (and if you could spare the half-minute I'd love to hear what you thought).

…have a nice day?


End file.
